Spock's First Week
by TomFoolery
Summary: Starfleet Academy was supposed to be easy: he had one of the highest entrance exam scores on record. Yet before Spock can study warp theory and diplomatic philosophy, he must first survive Starfleet's six week initial entry training, where he will learn to handle awful roommates, arbitrary regulations, absurd hazing rituals, jealous peers, and the wide spectrum of human illogic.
1. Departure

**Prologue: Day 0**

Spock stood on the landing platform with his bags and gazed across the Vulcan horizon. The sun was setting across the L-langon Mountains in the distance, and he considered that this would be a sight he would not see again for a considerable time.

His mother approached from behind him and gently clasped her hands around his right arm. "Your father would have come, but he was busy."

"Do not make excuses for my father," he replied. "He did not wish to come, and he did not wish me to join Starfleet. I did not respect his wishes, and therefore I cannot expect his support. I understood this when I made my choice."

" _Oh Spock_ ," she whispered, releasing his arm and turning to observe the view with him.

He could see the shuttle approaching that would take him to the transport ship bound for Earth sailing into view. As his father still served a supervisory role at the Vulcan Consulate to Earth, he had visited the planet many times in his youth. Earth was a shock to the senses: it was cold, damp, and inhabited by people who rarely saw the point in the judicious restraint of emotion.

He knew the senior advisor to the Science Council had been right: his application to Starfleet did have roots in rebellion. He had spent his entire life fighting assumptions that he would never be the equal of his peers because of his human mother, and an irrational moment of anger on his mother's behalf may well have proved them right. It was too late to alter his course now. He would go to Earth and serve in Starfleet: he had nowhere else to go. It was not as though he ever felt like he truly fit in on Vulcan anyway.

The shuttle began its descent onto the landing pad and he could feel the warm rush of the air displaced by the thrusters.

"It's only us, Spock, so let me just say good luck, and I love you," his mother said, her voice nearly drowned out over the roar of the incoming shuttle.

Spock turned his head to see she was squinting her eyes as if to fight off tears. She had to know her son would one day outgrow his need for her, so her emotional distress was irrational.

"I should think you realize luck is illogical," he replied.

"So it is."

The shuttle landed and an entry port folded down into a set of stairs and a human crewman emerged.

"Goodbye mother," he said. He formed his hand into the Vulcan salute and added, "Live long and prosper."

"You're my son, Spock. I would give anything to give you peace and long life. I hope you can find that in Starfleet."

He nodded to her, picked up his two small bags, and approached the crewman who was waving him forward with one hand while reading something from a PADD with the other.

"You Spock?" he yelled over the shuttle's still active thrusters.

"I am," he replied.

"Welcome to Starfleet. Put your bags in the overhead compartment and have a seat anywhere."

He walked up the stairs but at the top turned to see his mother for the last time. She gave him a little wave and he suspected there were tears freely flowing down her face by now, though he could not be certain from that distance. He nodded again and boarded the shuttle.

It was empty except for a crew of three and a pilot. He removed his PADD from his bags and then stowed them as he had been instructed and took a seat in the first of the sixteen passenger seats. The crewman he'd briefly interacted with sat in a rear-facing jump seat next to his comrades.

Spock clicked his PADD on and continued his research on Starfleet traditions when he noted a message from Starfleet Academy labeled, "Initial Entry Training Itinerary." He clicked it open and had only read the first sentence when the man he had spoken with interrupted.

"My name's Daggs," he said, holding out his hand.

"Vulcans don't shake hands, idiot. Besides, he's going to be an officer. Don't want to fraternize, you know?" said the older crewman sitting next to him.

"He doesn't know any better," the older crewman added, speaking this time to Spock. "I'm Jansky, and this guy is Coble. You're the first Vulcan to join Starfleet in like, ten years."

"Twelve," said the third man that Jansky had identified as Coble. "I checked before we boarded out of curiosity."

"So what made you want to join the fleet?" Daggs asked.

Spock was perplexed by the open curiosity of these strangers. Though he had been to Earth a total of thirteen times, most of his experience was limited to diplomatic settings due to his father's position, and so he'd never interacted with humans in so casual a way. His mother was human, of course, but she had adopted many Vulcan customs upon marrying his father.

"Why does _anyone_ join Starfleet?" Coble joked, noting the awkward silence. "Usually to get away from home and see the stars."

"Have you done your initial entry training yet?" Daggs asked.

"No," Spock replied.

"Ah, well, they'll treat you bad, but they're hard on everyone," Daggs explained. "That's the point: it's all supposed to be character building. Besides, big guy like you, I bet you coast through no problem."

Spock nodded his head slightly, still baffled by the crew's unusual familiarity and continued to read the message on his PADD.

He would begin his official studies at Starfleet on 2250.19, or 1 September by Earth's old calendar. He was arriving forty-four days prior to that date to complete Starfleet's Initial Entry Training, a program designed to teach all cadets basic skills, customs, and courtesies of the service and instill uniform discipline.

As he read the itinerary, he noted that there would be little serious academic instruction in the upcoming six weeks. Much of the time would be devoted to physical training, basic crew systems and weapons training, basic battle drills, communications training, Starfleet and Federation history, and survival classes.

None of this seemed particularly threatening. He had undertaken the kahs-wan in his youth, a traditional Vulcan survival test that required him to endure ten days without food or water in Vulcan's Forge. His physiology was also superior to that of humans, even without accounting for Earth's lighter gravity and thicker atmosphere.

The rest all seemed to be exercises on the retention and execution of basic instructions, which had been the pinnacle of his life since infancy. The days would be long: most were scheduled to go from 0600 to 2100, but Vulcans also possessed the ability to endure longer periods with less sleep than most other species.

Ultimately, it seemed as though the primary purpose of this initial entry training was to indoctrinate adaptability, and Vulcans were nothing if not adaptable.

Daggs rose from his seat and entered the pilot's cockpit. He gazed at Jansky and Coble, the former had leaned his head against the wall behind him and was sleeping softly and the latter was staring out the porthole at the starship they were approaching, the _USS Faraday_.

"Damn transporter's broken again; we're going to have to initiate docking procedures," Daggs whined.

"Well that figures," Jansky muttered without opening his eyes. "How do they plan to get the shuttle back into the bay?"

"Engineering is still working on the plasma conduits. They say it could be another couple of hours," Daggs replied.

Coble stood without complaint and began working at the computer console attached to the wall behind him. Spock watched the rhythm of their informal camaraderie, noting that though their idle banter was irrelevant to the mission, it seemed to do little to slow their efficiency.

Soon the shuttle docked with the _Faraday_ and the hatch hissed open. The three crewmen exited and Spock collected his things from the overhead compartment. The pilot stood waiting behind him with his arms crossed.

"After you," Spock said, yielding to the man in social politeness.

"No kid. After _you_. Captain always disembarks last."

"My apologies, I was unaware," Spock replied.

The man laughed and slapped his shoulder. Spock stared at the man neutrally, unclear of the purpose of such raucous behavior.

"I know. You don't know nothing yet. You're still wet behind the ears and darling as a litter of beagle pups to boot. But you'll learn. _Trust me_ , you'll learn."

"I am uncertain of the meaning of your multiple colloquialisms," Spock replied.

"It means get off my shuttle," the man shouted, pointing toward the exit with his hand.

As Spock exited the small craft and boarded the _Faraday_ , he noticed the bright red hue of his home planet from the small portal. They would not remain long in Vulcan's orbit, and he was not likely to see his home again for some time.

He moved away from the small window and realized this was his new home. Not the _Faraday_ specifically, but _Starfleet_.


	2. Inprocessing

**Day 1 (Sunday)**

It had taken fourteen hours to travel to Earth from Vulcan. The shuttle captain and the captain of the _Faraday_ had given him numerous pieces of advice on the trip. Much of it was trite and obvious, but the one recurring theme had been to keep his mouth shut, his ears open, and do as he was told. The advice was logical enough.

He had been a late arrival and now found himself in a large auditorium with approximately two hundred fifty other future cadets. They were mostly human, though he noticed two Andorians, two Rigelians, four Denobulans, five Tellarites, and a small Ithenite female, and a Risian male.

Some of the humans were sleeping but many others were chatting incessantly, causing a painful cacophony to echo throughout the large room. He sat very near the back and quietly observed. The hour on the large digital clock to the left of a stage read 0032.

A small human girl sitting across from him in the aisle smiled and waved at him. He nodded back to her.

"I'm Leslie," she said. "Leslie Saxena."

"I am Spock," he replied.

"That's an interesting name. You're from Vulcan, right?"

"Correct."

The human desire to intimate the vast details of one's life was apparently not restricted to the crewmen aboard the shuttle. For twenty minutes he listened to Leslie Saxena droll on about how she had been there since before the sun came up, how her mother was an author, how she grew up in a place called New Haven, how she liked to dance ballet and grow roses, and how she joined Starfleet on a whim.

"You don't talk much, do you?" she said, having to raise her voice to be heard over the din.

"I speak when it is necessary to do so."

"Well, can you watch my stuff while I go to the bathroom? I hate carting it around everywhere."

"Very well," Spock agreed, presuming she intended him to guard her belongings against theft or damage.

Approximately one minute after her departure, a man in a Starfleet uniform entered through a side door and approached the stage. Once he reached the podium, Spock's sensitive ears picked up the mild crackle of a loudspeaker.

"Ok everyone, take your seats and quiet down," he announced.

The majority complied with his request, but a few sizable groups toward the back seemed to openly disregard the direction.

"Did I make it sound like it was optional?" the man insisted, raising his voice by a few decibels.

It took another fifteen seconds for the room to finally grow silent and Spock turned his attention back toward the stage.

"I realize it's late and many of you probably are probably tired... _get used to it_. If you feel like you are going to fall asleep, feel free to stand up and move to the back of the room. If I bore you, deal with it. If you are hungry, breakfast is in five hours and you will live until then. Is everyone with me so far?"

One of the double doors immediately behind Spock creaked open and then slammed loudly. Most of the auditorium turned to see Leslie Saxena standing there, and Spock noticed her flesh was a peculiar shade of off-white.

"I'm so glad you could join us," the man at the podium said, clicking a button on his shirt to transfer the transmission of the microphone as he walked toward the edge of the stage. "What's your name?"

"Leslie," she murmured.

"I'm sorry, you're going to have to use your big person voice," the man replied.

"L-Leslie Saxena," she replied, barely louder than before.

"Are you asking me or telling me?" the man demanded. "Actually, never mind, that's ok. You're shy. We will make you _un_ -shy by the end of these six weeks. That's why you're here. That is why you're _all_ here."

Spock watched Leslie Saxena almost faint into her seat and wondered why she was so gravely affected by simply being asked for her name. He didn't have long to reflect however, because the man continued to speak.

"My name is Commander Christopher Pike. I am the newly appointed Director of Initial Entry Training at Starfleet Academy. If you play your cards right, today will be the last day you see me until the day you graduate from this course six weeks from now. If you see me _before_ then, it is probably because you have done something _wrong_ and you are standing on the carpet in my office explaining your misbegotten actions. You do _not_ want to get to know me. Are there any questions so far?"

Spock had many, but like everyone else in the room remained silent. He gathered from the stilted and repetitive pattern of Commander Pike's speech that it would be a long one and reasoned many answers to his questions would be forthcoming without posing them.

"Then here is your first lesson. When you are asked a question or told to do something, you will answer with the appropriate 'aye, sir' or 'aye, ma'am,' 'no, sir,' or 'no, ma'am.' Is that clear?"

A soft chorus of "aye, sir" rippled through the auditorium.

"You all sound like kittens mewing for mommy," Pike snapped. "Say it like you mean it."

" _Aye, sir_ ," they insisted with increased volume.

"Excellent. You are here for initial entry training. That means you are here to learn what Starfleet is all about. If you graduate this course, then and _only_ then will you go on to become cadets. I've read many of your files. Some of you practiced law or medicine before you came here. Some of you owned businesses or did independent research. For others, this is your first time away from home."

Spock noticed Pike scan the assembly and nod to himself before returning to his speech. The side door opened and twelve individuals in black uniforms filed in to stand stiffly to the right of the stage, but Pike either didn't notice or didn't care.

"You come from sixteen different Federation planets and colonies: Andoria, Vega, Deneva, Tellar Prime, Lunar One, Rigel, Risa, Denobula, Vulcan…"

He trailed off and Spock met Pike's eyes from all the way at the back of the room. A few people turned to look in Spock's direction, but the commander began speaking again.

"You all represent very rich and diverse cultures and backgrounds. During this course, you will find yourself challenged to reach out and understand people that are very different from you. You will find this difficult at times. It would be _weird_ if you didn't. But _that_ , ladies and gentleman, is what Starfleet is all about. You will make friends and you will make some enemies, but at the end of the day, you _will_ respect each other, work together, coexist peacefully, and show respect for the traditions of Starfleet. Is that clear?"

The auditorium echoed with a resounding, " _Aye, sir_!"

"Now, these men and women are your cadre," Pike explained, finally acknowledging the black-clad individuals standing to his right. "They are your instructors, your trainers, your new mommies and daddies. They are _not_ your friends. You will address them by their proper rank and last name. You will be tempted to give them nicknames – resist that temptation. They do not like it – it makes them angry. When they are angry, they will make your lives unhappy. When your lives are unhappy, you do silly things. When you do silly things, you stand on my carpet. _Do not stand on my carpet_."

By the end of his choppy lecture he was nearly growling. He paused for what Spock assumed was emphatic measure, and then continued. "I will dismiss you momentarily, and when I do, your lives belong to my cadre for the next six weeks."

Spock began examining the uniformed personnel and noted the complete lack of emotion in their faces. He expected humans to be expressive and emotional, yet he was not prepared for the absolute neutrality of this particular group.

"That is all I have at this time," Pike concluded, looking over to the broad-shouldered officer nearest the stage. "I wish you all good luck, and if you survive the next six weeks, I'll be proud to welcome you into Starfleet Academy."

Pike moved toward the stairs and the broad-shouldered man bellowed, " _On your feet_!" It was pandemonium as the two hundred cadets stood in the narrow spaces between the stadium chairs. Pike waved his hand, smiled, and said, " _Carry on_."

"Don't take your seats just yet kids," the broad-shouldered man yelled. Spock noted that he didn't require artificial amplification to carry his voice through the room.

"When I say ' _go_ ,' you will file calmly into the five aisles and organize yourselves into lines based on your last name. I'm assuming you all know your names and how to spell them, but you'll still screw it up, you always do. If your name is at the _beginning_ of the alphabet, move to the right. If it is at the _end_ of the alphabet, move to the left. You're all supposed to be the brightest of the bright, so if your name is in the middle of the alphabet, I'll let you figure out where to go. I'll give you a hint – try the middle of the room."

Spock collected his bags and moved toward the far left of the room, allowing Leslie Saxena to go before him. He waited behind her toward the end of a line containing people whose last names began with the letters R, S, or T and reflected on Pike's words. The line shuffled forward and he heard Leslie Saxena get assigned to Sigma Squad.

"Name?" asked a thin blonde man.

"S'chn T'gai Spock."

" _What_?" the man asked again, gaping at Spock.

Spock repeated himself and the man furrowed his eyebrows and appeared to try to form his mouth into an appropriate shape to repeat the name. "Yeah, anyway... you're with Sigma Squad. Go see Morrison."

He nodded toward an exceptionally short man with a surly expression who was pointing to the door and yelling at a group of fifteen cadets. Spock joined the group and found himself ushered out of doors into the warm and humid night. They formed into two rows of eight and other cadets filed out of the auditorium to assemble into similar formations nearby.

Spock listened to the rhythm of hundreds of unique and discordant sounds. He could hear the quick and shallow breathing of his fellow cadets in varying degrees of apprehension, the slaps of shoes smacking the pavement as people ran this way and that, and chaotic shouting from all directions. The man who had been identified as Morrison stood before them, rubbing his temples. A slight man of particularly short stature approached him and they conversed briefly.

"I am Lieutenant Quinones," the short man shouted suddenly, approaching the squad in a threatening manner. " _You_ will all call me Instructor Quinones. Understood?"

"Aye, sir," they replied, slightly out of unison.

He began strutting up and down the formation of cadets and speaking to each in turn while Morrison went around to the back row of the squad and did the same.

"So are we taking bets with this class, Morrison?" Quinones asked, stopping with his arms crossed in front of an older cadet with fading red hair.

"Sure," Morrison replied. "There's always one quitter, who's gonna be it?"

"My money's on gramps here," Quinones said. "What's your name and how old are you, trainee?"

"I'm Hadrian Scriver. I'm thirty-nine," he answered.

"Thirty-nine _what_?" Quinones barked.

"Thirty-nine years… _old_?" the red-haired man replied, a barely discernable quaver rising in his voice.

" _How about thirty-nine years old, sir_?" Quinones roared. "You know what? No, all of you, get ready to do pushups, now!"

Spock was the first to comply, placing his hands on the ground, kicking his feet out, and straightening his back to begin the exercise. Most of the other cadets looked around nervously and started to follow his example, but their slowness only seemed to anger Quinones more.

"At least one of you has half a brain and can follow simple instructions!" he roared, pointing at Spock. "You all had hearing tests before you joined, right?"

The other cadets quickly got on the ground into the pushup position, and Morrison began a chant of "Down! Up! Down! Up!" while Quinones continued talking.

"What Trainee Scrivner just demonstrated to you is that when one of you messes up, you will _all_ be punished. That is what it is like to serve in Starfleet: if someone slacks off or doesn't do the job right, everyone will suffer. One day, you may find yourself all alone in the vastness of space, and you will realize that you are only as strong as the weakest member of your crew. This course will make you work as a team. When someone on your team is doing the wrong thing, it is to _your_ benefit, and to the benefit of the rest of the team to make sure that person fixes it. Understood?"

"Aye, sir!" they replied.

From the corner of his eye, Spock noticed the thin arms of the woman to his left were shaking. She looked more like a _girl_ really: she had a very small build and when they had been standing, the top of her head had only come up to his shoulder. He noticed a forceful expression on her face that was growing more intense as they continued to do pushups.

After they had done thirty repetitions, Quinones yelled, "On your feet!" and they complied readily. When Spock stood, Quinones was directly in front of him.

"What's your name, trainee?" he sneered.

"S'chn T'gai Spock, sir," he replied, keeping his eyes fixed in front of him without looking directly at Quinones.

" _What_?" Quinones retorted.

"S'chn T'gai Spock, sir," he repeated.

"What _whole_ thing is your name?" Quinones laughed in disbelief. "I'm calling you Trainee Spock."

"Aye, sir," Spock replied, wondering if Quinones intended it as some kind of insult to refer to him by his given name.

"I've heard Vulcans are a pretty logical bunch," Quinones continued. "Do you think this course is going to be easy, Trainee Spock?"

Spock didn't even have to consider the question to understand there was no correct answer that would not devolve into more group punishment.

"Nothing to say, trainee?" Quinones rumbled.

"I presumed your question was rhetorical," Spock replied.

"Oh!" Quinones yelled, clapping his hands together in what appeared to be absurd delight. "Did you hear that Morrison? We have our resident smart-ass right here. _Trainee Spock_."

"You know what that sounds like to me?" Morrison asked, coming around to the front of the formation. "It sounds to _me_ like Trainee Spock wants everyone to do more pushups."

And they did. As the formation reassumed the pushup position, the small girl to his left gave him a look of defeated contempt. She fatigued more quickly this time, and after they had done twenty, Morrison knelt down beside her.

"Are you getting _tired_ , trainee?" he asked her.

Spock was beginning to see the obvious pattern to the carefully targeted interrogations. He logically concluded that this cycle of impossible questions and subsequent punishment was likely to endure until all of his fellow squad mates had been singled out at least once.

"No, sir," she squeaked.

"What's your name, trainee?" Morrison drawled.

"Susan Spencer, sir," she answered with a very high-pitched voice.

"How old are you, Trainee Susan Spencer?" Morrison asked.

"Twenty-five, sir," she said, struggling to lift her body back to the up position.

" _Ha_! I would have guessed half of that. Are you _sure_ you're not tired?"

Spock noticed her sigh and believed she was beginning to draw the same conclusion that he already had – there were no correct answers in this charade.

It went on that way for another hour as each cadet in turn became responsible for more mass punishment. He was surprised how quickly his human counterparts seemed to tire, but eventually, they were instructed to collect their bags and shepherded into a nearby building where hundreds of other cadets from other squads were formed into a queue with an unknown destination.

The line crept along and for the next two hours he carefully observed his surroundings. The only sound came from the shuffling of feet as the line inched forward periodically and the boisterous discussions of the instructors waiting on a group of benches toward the front of the room. Occasionally one would spring from his or her seat to patrol up and down the winding line and demand to know why people were talking, smiling, breathing too loudly, or "blinking weird."

Eventually he reached the front of the line and was ushered through a narrow doorway into a second room, which held another line that snaked back and forth before feeding into a door at the opposite end of the room. He wondered whether the inefficiency was deliberate as a means of further psychological confusion and distress or simply a byproduct of too many cadets and too few administrative personnel. After another hour he entered the third room and found himself in a large warehouse containing all manner of uniforms and equipment.

He was required to turn in his personal bags and was given a large gray rucksack that was quickly filled with two pairs of black boots, running shoes, four physical fitness uniforms, four general purpose uniforms, socks, underwear, a belt, towels, two locks, and bed linens. He was directed out of the building and found himself outside again and was instructed to stand quietly in formation with the rest of his squad.

When Sigma Squad was fully assembled, they were marched into a gray two-story building half a kilometer away. Quinones informed them these were their new barracks and instantly set to work screaming at them to change into their black physical training uniforms and unpack their clothing and equipment.

The room had eight bunk beds; four against each wall with a short partition dividing each bunk into a separate space and a taller partition dividing it down the middle. The females moved to the left side of the room and the males took the right.

"Trainee Spock!" Quinones roared.

"Aye, sir," Spock replied.

"If I call your name, that means report to me, trainee," Quinones snapped before adding, "I am not your butler. I do not come to _you_."

Spock jogged over to him and Quinones stuffed an old-style binder into his hands.

"You're my new barracks leader. You seem smart: _prove_ it. Everything you need to know is in that book," he explained, pointing to the binder. "You have ten minutes to get this entire room set up to the specifications you will find on page five of that manual. When you are done, you will all wait quietly at the foot of the bunks. Do you understand?"

"Aye, sir," Spock replied.

"We'll see," Quinones smiled before leaving the room and slamming the door.

Spock quickly flipped to page five and found a perfectly detailed diagram for how each cubicle should be laid out. It specified everything from the precise way to make the bunks to how to fold the sleeves of the uniforms inward and hang them in the corresponding wall lockers. Spock instantly recognized it would be close to impossible for all sixteen members of his squad to duplicate this in the allotted time.

Still, they were waiting on him for direction, so he carefully analyzed the schematic for another twenty seconds and then removed it from the book and handed it to Leslie Saxena.

"You're in charge of that side of the room. Follow this precisely," he said.

"But what about-"

"Follow me," Spock interrupted, collecting his rucksack and moving toward the first bunk on the right side.

He quickly set to work constructing the space to the exact specifications of the diagram while the other males watched. Four minutes later, the bottom bunk was perfectly made with a bath towel and washcloth neatly draped over the left hand side of the foot of the bed and the clothes immaculately stowed away in the adjacent wall locker.

The others set to work trying to follow his example and he moved to the female side of the room to check their progress, making corrections where necessary. With eight seconds to spare, all of the cadets were lined up at the end of the bunks. The door swung open quickly and slammed into the wall and Quinones and Morrison stomped in.

Spock noted a fleeting look of surprise on their faces. Quinones scowled and carefully moved up and down the cubicles while Morrison stood at the front of the room with his arms crossed.

" _Ha_! Found a deficiency. Trainee Schassler here put the lock on his wall locker backwards. Let's do pushups trainees! Gotta pay for Schassler's negligence!"

While they were doing the exercise, Morrison and Quinones continued to move around the room but found no other issues. Spock could draw no logical conclusions about what the punishment would be for following the diagram more closely than Quinones had clearly expected.

It turned out to be other forms of physical exercise that included sit-ups, running in place, and something Morrison referred to as "jumping jacks." After another hour, they stood at attention while the instructors left the room to confer between themselves.

"Remind me why I joined Starfleet again?" mused a male voice at the other end of the row of bunks.

The question garnered a few chuckles. Spock turned his head slightly to look at the six humans and the lone Denobulan male that made up his half of the room. The man next to him was swaying slightly and had glassy eyes and beads of perspiration forming on his face.

Spock approximated that it was approaching 0600, which was quickly confirmed when Morrison returned and marched them to a nearby single story building to eat breakfast. The meal consisted of a number of heavy fats and starches that he was ill accustomed to, yet he ate it all the same.

Spock noted the exuberance from earlier in the auditorium was gone, replaced by stunned cadets struggling to stay awake while quietly shoveling food into their mouths. He was aware that humans required more sleep than Vulcans, but was still surprised by how easily they exhausted.

After breakfast they were marched to a medical facility where they each received a secondary physical exam. He waited in a tiny, private cubicle for over an hour and took the time to meditate and re-center his emotions. Thus far nothing he had experienced had been _disturbing_ , at least not to _him_ , but it was still a significant change from the usual solemnness he was accustomed to on Vulcan.

Just as he was approaching a deep meditative state, a surly physician entered and began taking readings with a medical tricorder. He eventually pulled a small PADD from his coat pocket and entered some data and grumbled, "Healthy as a horse."

"Are equine species generally considered to be of superior health?" Spock inquired.

The doctor's eyes darted from his handheld device to study Spock, but he quickly went back to keying in data.

"You're the first human-Vulcan hybrid to serve in Starfleet," the doctor mused after several minutes.

"I imagine if you examined the medical histories of every cadet, you could find some unique, defining characteristic," Spock rebutted.

He was one of only twenty-five human-Vulcan hybrids known to medical literature, and as a result he had been something of a medical oddity his entire life. Therefore, the physician's attitude was unsurprising but still illogical.

"Yeah," the doctor frowned. "The problem is there's no species code on your medical file. Should you need medical treatment during the course of your Starfleet career, which you _will_ , they're going to want to know what kind of medical care to provide."

"I am sorry I can be of little assistance to you, being unfamiliar with Starfleet's medical coding protocols," Spock replied.

After another hour of waiting while the physician contacted various personnel within Starfleet's medical command, Spock received an appropriate species code and was ushered into a room for a hearing test. After the surly technician informed him that his hearing was superb enough to "hear a flea fart," he was subjected to blood screenings, a vision test, and eventually found himself in a line for immunizations.

He was behind Susan Spencer, the small woman with the high-pitched voice from his squad. She turned and looked at him imploringly and was about to say something when an unfamiliar female instructor in a black uniform approached and narrowed her eyes and Susan Spencer shut her mouth and faced forward again.

Eventually he reached a station with a portly woman holding a PADD and a hypospray. As had happened numerous times already, she got confused over the spelling of his name and eventually just referred to him informally as "Spock." She began to administer a series of hyposprays, and by the twenty-eighth injection, his neck began to hurt. None of the other cadets had received even half this amount and he inquired as to why.

"Well, being a human-Vulcan hybrid, Starfleet medical has you down for all required vaccinations for both species: only nine more to go. This one's for Arethian flu," she grinned.

"Is that disease not extraordinarily rare?" Spock asked.

"I just work here," she snapped, jamming the hypospray into his neck more forcefully than she probably intended, causing Spock to wonder if questioning her competence had been a wise decision with so many more injections remaining.

When she was done, his neck ached so badly that it caused considerable discomfort to even turn his head. Immunizations were the last station of medical inprocessing, and he was herded outside to wait with the rest of his squad.

Waiting made up the majority of the subsequent twelve hours. He waited in lines and ate his mid-day meal, waited in lines and filled out forms, waited in lines and filled out more redundant forms, waited in lines and ate end-meal, and waited in lines and received more equipment. It was just before midnight when Quinones marched them back to their barracks.

Spock was ready to admit he felt tired, but he still appeared to be faring better than any of his human comrades. He had seen Hadrian Scrivner sleeping while standing in line for dinner and he was currently watching Leslie Saxena slowly lean into the wall with her eyes closed. He was not as adept as his mother at interpreting human facial expressions, but it was readily apparent that everyone around him was exhausted and emotionally dejected.

Quinones gave them a short briefing on what to expect tomorrow. They were to wake up at 0600 hours, be downstairs in formation by 0615, and then they would go on a five-kilometer run. After a short period of personal hygiene and breakfast, they would spend the rest of the day negotiating obstacle courses and something Quinones referred to as "trust-building and confidence exercises."

"Trainees Spock and Schmidt!" Quinones bellowed.

Spock and his bunk mate, Andrew Schmidt, trotted over to Quinones.

"Congratulations, you're first place winners in the roving patrol sweepstakes," Quinones announced in a singsong voice.

"I do not take your meaning, sir," Spock replied.

"It means that for the next two hours, you and Schmidt will be walking laps around the outside of the building with flashlights and making sure everything is safe. When your shift is up, you will wake up Saxena and Spooner over there, and _they_ will pull a shift from 0200-0400 hours. There's a roster posted by the duty desk downstairs, as well as a list of instructions."

Schmidt started in surprise and stared open-mouthed at Quinones and stammered, "But-"

"But _what_ , Schmidt? Are you _tired_?"

Spock noticed the whites of Schmidt's eyes were strangely reddish, as if a few of the human blood vessels in his eyes had burst. "No, sir."

"Great," Quinones chimed, before adding, "Now close your mouth: you look like you're missing a chromosome. Both of you get downstairs. It is now 0001, and you are one minute late for your shift. Because of your tardiness, the rest of the squad is going to pay."

As he and Schmidt hurriedly left the room, he noticed Leslie Saxena's chin quivering as she got down to do pushups.

As he raced down the two flights of stairs, Spock considered everything that had transpired in the previous twenty-four hours. He was adaptable, but he was still significantly out of his element. That seemed to be the purpose of all of this: the yelling, the brusque attitudes, and the unrealistic expectations were all designed to instill mental discipline and perseverance.

While mental discipline was something he had a substantial supply of, he found himself questioning his ability to adequately relate to his peers. By the day's end, his squad mates had been looking to him for guidance, and that was something he felt ill equipped to provide to such an emotionally charged species.

It was irrational to question his decision to join Starfleet at this particular juncture. His choice had been made. He would endure. Regret was illogical.


	3. Out for Blood

**Day 2 (Monday)**

Spock and Schmidt were on their nineteenth lap of patrolling the exterior of the building. The campus was well lit and fenced in, so it was obvious to Spock their presence was simply a kind of formality designed to impart an appreciation of the responsibility for the lives of one's crew while simultaneously depriving them of needed sleep.

Schmidt was particularly loquacious and seemed entirely enamored with the opposite sex. He had given Spock his opinion on every single female in their squad and was working his way through the instructors when Spock asked if he ever spoke on other topics.

"Well, sure, _I guess_ ," he mumbled. "But is there anything better than the ladies?"

"I suppose it is a matter of opinion," Spock answered.

"What, they don't have girls on Vulcan?"

"Of course there are females on Vulcan," he retorted. "They are essential for the perpetuity of the species."

"The _what_ of _what_?" Schmidt laughed.

"Reproduction."

"So… you only care about girls for their baby boxes?"

"I presume you are referring to reproductive organs," Spock replied, mildly surprised by Schmidt's increasingly deplorable euphemistic language.

"Yeah, as a-"

"Females have value beyond their capacity to bear offspring," he interrupted, stopping in his tracks to stare at his squad mate.

"Well, sure, but they also have amazing-"

"I do not care to discuss this matter further," Spock said, tucking his hands behind his back and resuming his brisk pace.

After another hour, Leslie Saxena and Angelica Spooner arrived to relieve them.

" _Hey_ Angie," Schmidt cooed, flashing a brilliant smile at the slim, dark-skinned girl. "Can I call you Angie?"

"Yeah, whatever," Spooner muttered, keeping her eyes half closed and snatching the flashlight out of Schmidt's hands.

Spock handed his flashlight over to Leslie Saxena and he and Schmidt returned to the barracks. At the duty desk, he stopped to fill out the log as per the instructions posted on the wall. Schmidt kept walking and was halfway across the room when Spock stopped him.

"You are required to sign your name to the log for accountability," he insisted.

"Sign it for me. I'm beat," Schmidt said, resuming his course toward the stairs.

"That is not the proper procedure," Spock argued. "Come sign the log."

"Or else what? You'll _tell_ on me?" Schmidt sneered, entering the stairwell and slamming the door behind him.

Spock deliberated how to annotate Schmidt's refusal to comply with a simple request and settled for penning an extensive statement on the matter before ascending the stairs himself. The rumble of deep snoring trailed down the hallway and grew considerably louder when he entered the room. The door slammed gently behind him, and from over on the female side a shrill voice screamed, "I swear I'm gonna kill the next inconsiderate _ass_ who slams the door!"

"Shut up, you whiney brat!" one of the males shot back.

"He did _not_ just tell me what to do!" she hissed in reply.

The bickering continued as Spock quietly moved over to his bed. Schmidt was already lying face down on the upper bunk, naked except for a pair of white socks. Spock briefly stared at Schmidt's disturbing lack of modesty before sitting down on his bottom bunk and beginning to untie his shoes.

The bed squeaked and creaked at the slightest movement, and soon someone was yelling at him again to keep the noise down. Eventually he settled in between the crunchy sheets, finding their ability to insulate him against the cold temperature of the room inadequate. He was also too tall for the bed and his feet hung ten centimeters off the end and Schmidt's heavy breathing from above caused the entire bed to gently sway.

It seemed that as soon as he drifted into sleep, he was roused by the excruciating sound of screeching music. His squad mates were yelling, but their voices were being drowned out by melodies that sounded like songs for teaching children primary concepts.

" _Why_?" Schmidt roared, nearly falling off the top bed onto Spock.

" _Red and orange, green and blue, shiny yellow, purple too, all the colors that we know, live up in the rainbow_ …"

Spock struggled to make sense of what was going on when a booming voice interrupted the song over the loudspeaker.

"Rise and shine, trainees! You have fifteen minutes to muster downstairs for the morning's run. Get there!"

The music resumed, this time singing a chorus about elementary shapes. From just around the dividing wall, he could see Leslie Saxena sitting on the floor with her knees curled up to her chest and muttering to herself.

"Aren't there Federation laws against torture?" Schmidt squealed before uttering a long string of obscenities.

As much as Spock was quickly learning to tolerate the human tendency toward exaggeration, the piercing sound was hurting his ears. He quickly donned his shoes and left the room. He could feel a headache emerging and tried to breathe deeply to meditate the pain away, but cadets from other squads were bumping past him to race down the stairs.

The sun had yet to crest the horizon in the distance but the pale glow of the dawn indicated its emergence was soon to come. Condensation from the grass wetted his socks; he greatly disliked being wet. Soon the other members of Sigma Squad joined him on the grassy lawn, each looking worse than the next. Exhaustion and defeat were written into their posture and they all looked listlessly at the ground with half-open, bloodshot eyes.

"Wow, you guys look terrible!" Morrison declared cheerfully, approaching the formation with a swaggering gait. "But that's ok, because _I_ feel great! Welcome to your very first day of training. Are you motivated, trainees?"

Spock and about half the squad murmured, "Aye, sir," which greatly incensed Morrison and resulted in a quick commencement of doing pushups for their low morale.

"Fake motivation is _still_ motivation, trainees. You will be excited to train today, or you will lie about it. Is that clear?" Despite the absurdity of being ordered to lie about his delight in physical punishment, Spock did the same as everyone else and yelled, "Aye sir!"

"Did you like my preschool music this morning, trainees?"

"Aye, sir!" they lied in unison.

"Then you are all _weird_! Keep pushing!"

When Morrison was finally satisfied, they began thirty minutes of stretching and warm-ups that became intermingled with more mass punishment for minor and even non-existent infractions. It was logical to conclude there was an arbitrary standard at play, and therefore it was impossible to predict what might trigger further torment. He had resigned himself to this last night upon meeting his instructors, but judging by the looks on his squad mates' faces, it was apparent they had not.

At the conclusion of stretching, they reformed into a squad of two columns and marched into the street to begin their morning's run. Spock stood at the head of it with the Denobulan, whom Spock believed was called Rylax. Morrison stood just to Spock's immediate left and issued the order to begin.

It was a painfully slow jog. As a Vulcan, his larger chest cavity, superior lung capacity, efficient circulatory system, and long legs made running easy, but when combined with Earth's weaker gravity and oxygen-rich atmosphere, the exercise failed to even induce a change in his heart or breathing rate. Soon Morrison was running around the formation to make sure they remained together, and Spock took advantage of his absence to focus on meditation. He breathed in and out slowly, focusing on ridding himself of his headache.

"Am I _boring_ you, Trainee Spock?" Morrison roared in his ear, startling him back to a more alert state of consciousness. "Is this run too _slow_ for you?"

"No sir," Spock replied, already aware Morrison intended to increase the pace regardless of his answer.

"You could have fooled me," Morrison snapped. "Trainee Spock is asleep up here, Sigma Squad. How about we pick up the pace just to keep him engaged?"

Morrison quickly doubled their speed and the squad broke out into a run. He could hear the pants of labored breathing from his squad mates behind him, but still Morrison ran faster. Spock kept a steady pace with him, unaffected by the increase in speed.

"We can stop when Trainee Spock is no longer _bored_ by our morning workout," Morrison yelled, though Spock could easily detect strain in his voice.

Soon they were sprinting. To his right, he could see Rylax starting to struggle and could hear most of the footfall of his comrades beginning to fade into the distance. Before long, they returned back to the barracks area, having completed their five-kilometer run in slightly less than fifteen minutes. Spock and Morrison were the first to arrive on the lawn, immediately followed by Rylax, who had fallen slightly behind and seconds later by Angelica Spooner, who collapsed on the grass and began dry heaving.

The other members of Sigma Squad began trickling in and Morrison left to collect the stragglers. Susan Spencer limped in last, cherry-cheeked and dazed with her white-blonde hair plastered to her sweaty face. Morrison sent her to medical and then resumed yelling at the trainees under his command. Spock noticed a slight hobble to Morrison's gait as they initiated cool down stretches, but he strode angrily amongst the squad, eventually stopping in front of Spock.

"You don't look like you even broke a sweat, Trainee Spock," Morrison said in a tone that sounded falsely sweet. "Why is that?"

Spock stood at attention for Morrison, looking calmly into his eyes and seeing nothing but some very intense emotion he could not adequately name.

"Vulcans naturally possess a higher degree of cardiovascular fitness and endurance," Spock answered.

"Well, since you don't ever seem to get tired, how about you pull a shift on guard every night until you graduate from this course, just to help your buddies out?" Morrison said, his voice growing quiet.

Spock nodded slowly, but then had the presence of mind to add, "Aye, sir."

They were given a short amount of time to perform hygiene and change into their gray uniforms. They moved in a rhythm that was somehow both rushed and lethargic. As they trudged up the stairs, Schmidt stomped past him, glaring and muttering, " _Thanks a lot, Seabiscuit_."

"I am unaware of that term, but I deduce it is some form of insult," Spock said, but Schmidt had already turned his back and resumed climbing the stairs ahead of him.

"Maybe more like a backhanded compliment," replied a female voice half a step behind him.

"Clarify," Spock said, turning to see Spooner.

"Seabiscuit isn't a term; he was a famous racehorse from like, centuries ago," she explained.

They reached the top of the stairs and held the door for Spooner and waited for Leslie Saxena who was still only halfway up the last flight of stairs.

"I think I'm dead," Saxena whined.

"And yet you speak, demonstrating that you are alive," Spock replied, allowing her to pass and then following her into the hallway that led to their barracks room.

She gave him a quizzical look and looked like she was about to say something but thought better of it. As they entered the room, she turned to him and gave him a pleadingly serious look and said, "Is there any chance the next time we go on a run, you could, you know, maybe _not_ try to qualify for the Olympics?"

She didn't wait for his reply and instead went over to her bunk, grabbed her towel and a small bag and walked in the direction of the female lavatory at the opposite end of the room. Spock did likewise, and upon entering the male lavatory, was immersed in an uncomfortable steam fog.

He had never taken a water-based shower. Vulcans as a general rule did not prefer to be wet, and centuries before had invented more efficient sonic-impulse cleansing systems. He took the unoccupied stall at the end and set to work attempting to clean himself as best as possible. The end result left him feeling only slightly less dirty, but now he was covered in a soapy residue that the water had failed to adequately remove.

The next hour passed in a blur of standing in more formations, eating breakfast, marching all over the training campus, more mass punishment, and then standing idly in formation while Morrison and Quinones conferred between themselves for the better part of an hour. Susan Spencer returned from medical bay, and then soon they were marched from the southern gates of the campus and quickly entered a footpath in the woods.

Spock recalled Quinones had mentioned the day would be consumed by "trust-building and confidence exercises," though he was unable to deduce further specifics. They marched four kilometers up several steep hills and he could feel parts of his feet beginning to hurt.

The pain continued to increase until he felt a warm, wet feeling along the backs of his ankles and between his toes. He was rapidly forming blisters from the stiff new boots and the humid air. Judging by the increasingly ginger steps of his squad mates, he inferred they were experiencing similar problems.

Eventually they crested a particularly steep hill and arrived at a wide field covered with various apparatuses featuring walls, ropes, elevated beams, and trenches. Morrison called the group to a halt and they gathered into a horseshoe formation around him.

"Listen up, trainees," he drawled. "Today is about getting to know your squad mates. You will learn to trust each other, listen to each other, work together, and if I get my way, be dirty and miserable together."

"I don't know how I'm going to do all of this stuff," Leslie Saxena moaned to no one in particular. "Even my _earlobes_ are sore."

"I don't know about you, but I have blisters on my heels that feel like they're about the size of dinner plates," Hadrian Scrivner replied to her as they approached the first obstacle.

Spock was slowly beginning to understand humans had a need to express discomfort aloud, but he could not construct a useful explanation for why. It was logical to assume the strenuous activity of the past thirty-six hours had taken a heavy physical toll upon them all, and stating the fact did nothing to change it.

They filed into a single column and started to negotiate the course as a group with Quinones leading the way. The initial obstacles were easy. They climbed a rope ladder to a balance beam three meters off the ground, traversed it, and came to a metal pole that they hung from and pulled themselves along hand over hand.

When he landed, Spock looked ahead and saw Quinones emerging from an underground culvert, soaking wet and covered in mud. Schmidt was already cursing under his breath and getting down on his hands and knees to crawl through the long tunnel and a short time later, Sigma Squad was splashing through it behind him.

Their brand new gray uniforms were now caked with a thick layer of mud and as they continued to negotiate the course, they acquired grass stains, tears, and even a few bloodstains. The obstacles became increasingly difficult and dangerous, as evidenced when one of his male squad mates fell from a rope bridge and hit the hard ground with a discernible crunch, forcing them to stop the course while Morrison called for a medical transport.

They resumed the training once he was evacuated, though Spock sensed an added trepidation among his comrades. The final obstacle was a tall metal ladder with a height of approximately twenty meters that fed onto a platform. Morrison began climbing it and once he was halfway up the apparatus, he motioned for Rylax to begin.

"I can't do this," Spencer muttered.

Spock glanced at her and noticed her face was an even paler shade than usual. "You have negotiated the other obstacles satisfactorily. I fail to see how this one is different."

"You fail to see?" she growled. "It's _so_ high."

"Does that present some added difficulty for you?" Spock asked.

" _Yeah_. I'm afraid of heights."

"A fear of heights is illogical," Spock remarked. "A high place presents no danger."

" _Falling_ does," she snapped.

"Then it would seem the source of your anxiety has more to do with elementary principles of gravity."

Spencer sneered at him, crossed her arms, and walked toward the front of the group. The rest of the squad ascended the ladder and soon he was alone with Spencer when Morrison motioned for the next person to begin. He looked at her and she crossed her arms and began shaking her head.

"Is there something _wrong_ , trainee?" Quinones yelled, stomping over to them.

"I- I- I just- I _can't_ ," she stammered.

" _You_ ," Quinones said, snapping his fingers at Spock and pointing to the ladder's first rung. "Go."

As Spock scaled the ladder, he could hear Quinones employ a series of tactics that ranged from helpful encouragement to vicious threats. Eventually, he climbed out of earshot and reached the platform, where he waited with Morrison and the rest of the squad for thirty minutes until Spencer finally appeared. The whites of her eyes were completely red and her cheeks were wet. She crawled onto the platform on her hands and knees, but didn't stand up.

"You _scared_ , Trainee Spencer?" Morrison laughed, slapping his knee and standing from the beam he had been sitting on.

"Yes," she breathed. "Yes, sir."

" _Honesty_. That's fine," Morrison yawned. "But you got up here, and that's half the battle. The other half is getting down."

A broad smile broke across Morrison's face. The fresh tears that began to cascade down Spencer's cheeks fascinated Spock; he was aware that humans often cried from physical pain and emotions such as grief or even anger, but it seemed the phenomena could also be the result of fear.

"The way I see it is, there's only two ways to get down – you can climb down, or you can fall down," Morrison jeered.

She began to shake and someone whispered, " _Come on, is this really necessary_?"

Morrison perked up and looked at the rest of the squad and roared, "It absolutely is, _Schassler_. If a twenty meter ladder reduces you to tears, what's gonna happen when a Klingon attack fleet has you cornered in some remote system? Are you just gonna find a corner and have a little boo hoo?"

Despite his cruel methodology, Morrison's logic was sound.

"Get off my tower, Schassler," Morrison barked, pointing to the rope. "And when you get to the bottom, do pushups until everyone gets down."

Schassler moved to the edge, crouched, took a thick rope between his hands, and began descending backward from the high platform. The descended one by one and Spock was about to take his turn when Morrison stopped him and pointed at Spencer.

"Now, Spencer. You're up," Morrison announced.

"No, _please_ ," she panted.

"This isn't a choice. If you don't do this now, I will push the paperwork through to send you home before the day is over. Do you really want to quit Starfleet on your first day because you were scared?"

It took ten minutes, but she eventually made her way to the edge and gripped the rope so hard her knuckles turned white. She wavered and began to hyperventilate.

"Listen to me, Spencer," Morrison said, getting down on his hands and knees to put his face even with hers. "You are getting off this tower one way or another. You can climb down that rope willingly in the next five seconds, or I will put my boot in your chest and-"

She screamed and started to fall backwards but caught herself. Her knees shook so hard that they knocked together, but unexpectedly, she started to descend. Spock examined Morrison and saw a huge grin on his face and he stood up and clapped his hands like a delighted child. His joy was apparent, but what Spock could not determine was whether it was produced by tormenting Spencer or at Spencer's eventual compliance with his demands.

He logically concluded there had to be some sort of safety mechanism in place to prevent serious injury as a result from falling. They were told the purpose of this course was confidence building, not natural selection.

After they had all reached the bottom of the tower, his suspicions were confirmed when Morrison jumped the twenty meter distance from the top of the platform to the screams of a few of his squad mates. He was quickly slowed about halfway down before gently landing on his feet by what appeared to be some kind of buoyant force field. He laughed in a strange-high pitched way and sauntered up to Spencer.

"Did you really think I was going to push you to your death, Spencer?"

She said nothing, and Spock shifted his gaze from her to the rest of Sigma Squad. Most were staring at Morrison in varying shades of awe and disbelief, but he noticed Schmidt in particular was staring at _him_ with something that bordered more on disgust.

They spent the rest of the morning completing more obstacles, including a five-kilometer endurance course over rough terrain that included crawling through more culverts, scaling high walls, and low crawling through sand, grass and mud. His muscles were beginning to ache from the strain of such constantly grueling physical activity, and the blisters on his feet grew larger and burned.

By mid-afternoon they marched back to the training campus in similar states of exhausted, aching, and hungry. They were given about three minutes to eat lunch and he kept his head down and ate as quickly and efficiently as he could. He could not deny his squad mates probably accrued more nutritional supplement through the abandonment of utensils, and he was both internally mildly disgusted and impressed as he watched Schassler eat an apple and a slice of bread out of both hands simultaneously.

After lunch they were herded to a large outdoor shed and given rakes, gardening shears, and bags and set to work cleaning up the landscaping around a number of administrative buildings. Spock's hands had numerous splinters from the wooden obstacles and ropes from earlier in the day, but he was easily the tallest person in his squad and consented to trim stray limbs from many of the taller trees.

"Join Starfleet they said. Be an engineer they said. Apparently what they really meant was do my lawn work," Schmidt complained.

"The work is neither complicated nor impossibly arduous," Spock replied.

"I wasn't talking to you," he snapped.

"Then who were you talking to?" Rylax answered with a peaceful grin.

Schmidt shook his head and stomped off to the other side of the building, and Spock continued to prune overgrown branches while Saxena stacked them into a pile. They worked together without speaking, which seemed a noted reversal of her chatty candor when he had first met her. Her face was red and he surmised she was sustaining too much exposure to the local star's ultraviolet radiation.

He suggested she go work in the shade and she nodded languidly and complied without comment. Spock continued to cut low-hanging branches from a row of trees flanking a high cement wall. His sensitive hearing picked up several familiar voices on the other side.

"I'm telling you, there's something _wrong_ with that guy," Schmidt insisted.

"I think that's just the way Vulcans are," Spooner replied. "They're, _you know_ , logical."

"There's logic and then there's being a _psychopath_. He didn't even flinch when that Rollins guy fell. I bet he broke his back. And then when Morrison jumped – nothing. _That's not normal_."

"Maybe he's just tougher than you," Spencer retorted.

"Yeah, says the girl who cries when she's scared," Schmidt mocked.

"Is there ever a single moment in the day when you're not a giant _ass_?" Spooner interjected.

"Oh come on now, Angie," he clucked.

"That's _not_ my name," she growled.

He heard rustling from behind the wall and about a minute later Spooner turned the corner and seemed surprised to see him. He looked at her but said nothing as he continued to prune the tree's branches.

"Need any help?" she asked, strolling up to him slowly with her hands in her pockets.

"If you would collect the branches and stack them into that pile, that would increase the efficiency of this task," he replied.

" _Schmidt_!" Quinones roared from several buildings away.

Schmidt jogged around the side of the building, was startled at the sight of Spock, but then made his way over to Quinones. Spock and Spooner continued their work without talking for a time, until she finally said, "That guy is such a pig."

"To whom do you refer?"

"Schmidt," she answered.

"May I ask why it is that humans have a tendency to use euphemisms relating to livestock?"

"Huh?" Spooner asked with a half smile, pausing as she collected the branches.

"Yesterday I was told I was as 'healthy as a horse.' Again this morning I was compared to a long-dead racehorse of considerable fame, and just now you called Trainee Schmidt a pig."

She chuckled slightly and shrugged, crouching again to resume picking up branches. "You _are_ fast though."

"You also ran remarkably well for a member of your species," he answered.

She scoffed, brushed the hair out of her eyes with her wrist, frowned, and said, "Thanks, I guess. I ran track as an undergrad. You?"

"Clarify," he replied, lowering his arms from cutting branches to stretch them.

"Did you, I dunno, do sports? Go to college?"

"I possess a degree in astrophysics from Shi-Kahr Academy."

"What are you going to study here?"

"General science, with an emphasis on computer engineering and physics," he answered.

"I take it you want to be a science officer then?" she asked, stretching her back out.

"I have not yet decided."

"My undergrad is in exobiology," she said, putting her hands on her hips and staring at him indifferently. "I'm wanting to stay in a specialized field and do research. That's really why I joined Starfleet I guess. You can be an exobiologist on Earth, but probably not a very good one. Besides, my whole family is in Starfleet, so it was kind of expected of me. Do you have family in Starfleet?"

"Not many Vulcans choose service in Starfleet," he explained.

"So what made _you_ join?"

Spock was excused from answering her increasingly personal and uncomfortable questions by Schmidt, who walked up and punched him in the shoulder. "Thanks a lot, you pointy-eared psycho."

"I do not understand the source of your anger," Spock said, turning his body to face Schmidt squarely and lowering the hedge-trimmers.

"You wrote a whole damn essay on how I 'refused' to sign the log last night!" Schmidt snapped.

"It is the truth," he retorted.

" _No_ , I said to 'sign my name for me,' but instead you hung me out to dry."

"Would it have been so difficult to follow procedure?" Spock asked.

Schmidt gritted his teeth and laughed and motioned to Spooner, " _Do you hear this guy_?"

Spooner shrugged and made herself busy collecting more branches.

"Well, thanks to you, I have a guard shift every night this week," Schmidt hissed.

"Perhaps your punishment will serve as a reminder to adhere to the correct protocols next time."

Schmidt approached him and stopped just centimeters from his face and said, "Don't forget, I sleep on the bunk right above yours."

"I presume you are making a threat," Spock answered.

Schmidt shrugged his shoulders, made a foul gesture, and stomped away. When Spock was finished trimming the tree branches, he began helping Spooner and Saxena neatly stack them on the edge of the lawn.

"How are you doing?" Saxena asked Spooner.

"Well, let's see, I've marched my feet into bloody stumps and all I can think is how much I'm looking forward to eating boiled vegetables for dinner and going to sleep on sheets with a thread count approaching that of wicker and an itchy wool blanket that probably kept horses warm in World War I and reeks of dick dander and despair. So yeah, that's how I'm doing."

The two women roiled with laughter, eventually dropping the branches they were carrying and sitting down on the grass in tears. Spock couldn't understand the course of their mirth, and the tears streaming down their cheeks only further confused the matter.

Sigma Squad continued to work until dusk and then ate dinner. He found he ate each meal more readily, caring less about the heavy way it settled in his stomach and more about replacing lost energy stores. At their meal's conclusion, they returned to the barracks where they collaborated with the other squads to clean the interior of the building.

At 2100 hours they retired to bed, but Spock reported downstairs for his newly earned nightly duty shift. Instead of roving guard, he was tasked with re-cleaning the downstairs common area, despite the fact that it had been scoured just thirty minutes earlier.

The nature of the assignment was a curious cascade of illogic. He was being punished for appearing bored on the morning's run and then performing better than Morrison had expected when his instructor had pushed him harder, and his punishment was to waste time, energy, and supplies mopping a floor and cleaning windows that had only had half an hour to accumulate dirt.

At 2300 hours, he made his way upstairs and despite his best efforts to keep the noise to a low level, was yelled at by his squad mates for being too loud. He took his things to the latrine to shower, and when he sat down on the low bench and removed his boots, he uttered an uncharacteristic gasp.

His white socks were completely crusted with dried greenish blood. He had blisters running the length of his heel, on his largest and smallest toes, and a strange loose clump of skin on the balls of his feet.

He took extra time in the shower, and though the soap made his skin uncomfortable and he disliked breathing the steam, the amount of dirt and grime circling the drain warranted an extended session. He donned his Starfleet athletic clothing and walked back to his bunk.

Schmidt was facedown on top of the blanket and snoring at a considerable level from the top bunk and was once again naked, excepting a pair of white socks. Spock tucked himself into the sheets and was nearly asleep when the door burst open and the room was filled with the shrieking of some kind of brass instrument.

The members of Sigma Squad started yelling and swearing and Schmidt fell from the top bunk and hit the floor with a loud _thwack_ and yelped. Spock sat up and covered his ears from the painful sound.

"I hope you don't mind, trainees!" Morrison bellowed. "I practice my trumpet at night, but they said I was making too much noise in the cadre break room, so I decided to come play some music for you! It doesn't bother you, _does it_?"

Spock slowly reclined back onto the bed and along with the other members his squad muttered, "No sir."


	4. How People Cope

**Day 3 (Tuesday)**

At 0600, the alarm sounded over the intercom and Sigma Squad was roused from their bunks. Spock felt terrible. Traditional Vulcan meditational healing methods were only so effective on a few hours of sleep. His muscles ached, his head hurt, and skin itched terribly.

He stood and set to work making his bunk, noticing a faint green rash on his arms and legs. It didn't appear serious, but it was extremely uncomfortable. His feet were in poor condition: his blisters had dried in the night but were very tender to the touch and another day of further aggravation from new footwear would render them in a worse state than they already were.

Once his bed was made, he sat down and put on his athletic clothing for the morning's exercises. Even pulling on his softer training shoes was painful. Schmidt still snored soundly from the top bunk, facedown, naked, and unashamed.

"It is time to wake," Spock announced.

Schmidt didn't stir. Spock didn't want to touch the man's bare flesh, so he moved closer and spoke louder, but Schmidt refused to budge.

"Hey, _nasty_ , get up," proclaimed another male called Laszlo Ruzsa from the next bunk over with a rather unusual accent. "And put on clothes."

Schmidt began a long and aggressive string of swear words and rolled over and faced the wall. Spock concluded Schmidt was unlikely to be provoked into wakefulness by gentle means and didn't see the sense in using more hostile tactics, because doing so would only irritate his bunkmate. Yet he was apparent that if Schmidt were not at formation, the rest of the squad would be held accountable for his absence. Most of the squad had left, but Schassler and Scrivner stopped by his cubicle and stared at Schmidt.

"It's like he _wants_ us to hate him," Scrivner sneered, looking at Schmidt's bare backside.

"We can't leave him here," Schassler moaned, stepping forward.

"This is a problem with no universally acceptable resolution," Spock stated. "We shall either be reprimanded for being late to formation and likely engaging in a physical altercation with him, or we shall be punished when he fails to appear with the rest of the squad."

"So what do we do?" Scrivner sighed, adding they only had three minutes to get downstairs.

"Everyone else already left him," Schassler said, crossing his arms. "Does it make a difference if we do too?"

"Yeah, because no one else realized he was going to be a turd and be too lazy to get up. They went downstairs with no reason to assume he'd do this, but now that we know he's not going to make it, we're liable for him," Scrivner argued.

"I question his ability to adequately dress in the allotted time without significant complaint," Spock interjected. "Therefore logic suggests we should leave him. If we are to be admonished either way, we might as well do it without instigating a fight with Trainee Schmidt."

The three of them jogged down the hallway and reached the stairs when Schassler asked, "What's the deal with that rash?"

"I do not know," Spock answered, looking down at his arms.

"I'm not well versed in Vulcan biology, but it looks like an allergic response," Schassler replied.

"Vulcans rarely experience prolonged immune disruptions," Spock countered.

"But I thought I heard someone say you were only half Vulcan," Schassler argued.

"Are you trained in medicine?" Spock asked.

"I'm not a physician, but I _am_ a nurse. I've only had my license for two years, but I've seen plenty of allergic reactions. You should go to medical."

"I shall take your suggestion under advisement," Spock said as they exited the building and sprinted toward the formation.

Quinones arrived just as they fell into the back row, scowled at them, checked a time device around his wrist and made a clucking sound.

"Sigma Squad looks a little short this morning," Quinones drawled. "You'll all be pleased to know that Trainee Rollins is expected to make a full recovery, but he has chosen to quit. Last night we also lost Trainees Rutowski and Ryder, who also decided Starfleet was not for them, but if my count is correct, it appears we're still missing someone. Where is Trainee Schmidt?"

"He would not wake up this morning, sir," Spock explained.

Quinones strutted over to Spock and stopped centimeters from his face. "You are his bunkmate, _aren't you_?"

"I am."

"So you just thought you'd let him sleep in and get everyone else in trouble?" Quinones said, lowering his voice so only Spock could hear.

"Given the likely outcomes of each possible course of action at my disposal, I determined-"

"Everyone get down and start pushing," Quinones roared, even though he was still in close proximity to Spock's face.

The volume created a painful ringing in his ears and he prepared to get into the pushup positions, but Quinones stopped him. "Not _you_ ," Quinones said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Spock. " _You_ are going to go back up into those barracks and ensure Schmidt gets down here. They will all do pushups until you get back, so you might want to hurry."

"Aye, sir," Spock said.

He ran back up the stairs of the barracks two at a time and when he arrived at their bunk, Schmidt was still exactly where they had left him. "Wake up," Spock demanded.

" _SHHHHHHHH_!" Schmidt hissed, wrapping his flimsy pillow around his head.

Spock reluctantly pushed Schmidt's bare shoulder with the palm of his hand. Vulcans preferred to avoid touching other people under typical circumstances and though this was an exception, Spock still had to repress a small twinge of disgust. Schmidt didn't move. Spock stepped back calmly and could just make out the cadence of his squad mates downstairs doing pushups. _41, 42, 43…_

He retreated to the bathroom, emptied the mop bucket in the small janitorial closet of its mop, and filled it a quarter of the way with water from the sink. When he upturned it over Schmidt's head, the man unleashed a string of obscenities that rivaled the worst of anything Spock had ever heard. The water trickled down Schmidt's bed onto his own, but it was a necessary price to pay.

Schmidt rolled awkwardly onto the floor and Spock went to return the mop bucket to the lavatory. When he returned with the mop to collect the water on the floor, Schmidt had donned a set of his athletic shorts and Spock narrowly dodged his fist as he came around the corner of their cubicle.

"I do not intend to engage in physical combat with you," Spock said, holding the handle of the mop out, ready to defend himself.

Schmidt grabbed it and pulled hard, throwing Spock slightly off balance. They quickly fell onto the floor and Schmidt had the initial superiority of position to hit Spock squarely in the left eye with a well placed punch. His head snapped back onto the hard concrete floor but he reacted instantly, throwing his elbow into Schmidt's tricep muscle to prevent him from pinning him to the ground and causing Spock further injury. Schmidt screamed and flopped onto his back, cradling his arm and Spock sat up on his haunches.

" _What the hell is this_?" Morrison yelled, stomping into the room and grabbing Spock by the back of his shirt and hauling him to his feet.

"Trainee Schmidt refused to wake up, and when-"

"That Vulcan psycho broke my arm!" Schmidt wailed.

Morrison let go of Spock's shirt and knelt down to inspect Schmidt's arm. He hadn't been exaggerating: the upper part of his arm was bent at a strange angle and already swelling.

" _It's too early to deal with this_ ," Morrison muttered, flipping open a communicator attached to his belt and calling for a medical transport.

A minute later Schmidt dematerialized and Morrison turned to face Spock. His mouth was puckered into an expression of annoyance and the communicator was still in his hand.

"Get dressed into a duty uniform," Morrison sighed. "You're going to see the commandant."

"Sir, I-"

"This is out of my hands," Morrison interrupted. "We're given a wide latitude to let you all figure this kind of stuff out on your own, but one of the few things I can't let go is a fistfight in my barracks, especially when it results in serious injury. Get dressed and meet me downstairs."

Morrison flipped his communicator back open and called for Commander Pike as he left the room. Spock quickly changed into his gray uniform and took great care in pulling the heavy boots onto his blistered feet. He met Morrison downstairs as he had been instructed and they marched the long distance to the senior administration building.

"Why is your face all blotchy?" Morrison asked, jeering at Spock's complexion.

"I appear to be having an abnormal immune response to an unknown stimulus," Spock replied.

" _Uh huh_ ," Morrison said, pulling the door open and cutting Spock off to walk through it first.

They both stood outside the commandant's office and Morrison explained the proper way to report to Commander Pike. He was halfway through explaining procedures for reporting indoors when the door opened and Pike said, "Lieutenant Morrison, a word."

Morrison straightened his back, adjusted his uniform, and entered the office. The door slammed behind him, and Spock waited alone in the hallway. It was only 0630 hours and many of the building's personnel would likely not arrive for some time.

He could not determine what the most likely outcome of meeting with Commander Pike would be. It was entirely possible he would be removed from the course and would be unable to continue on to Starfleet Academy, but rather than consider the broader implications of failing before he had even begun, he meditated quietly to himself for approximately forty-five minutes. Morrison finally emerged.

"He'll call for you when he's ready. I have to go get Schmidt from medical."

Spock waited another thirty minutes before the door slid open and Commander Pike called, "Trainee Spock?"

Spock entered the room as Morrison had told him to do, walking crisply and purposefully before stopping a meter from Commander Pike's desk onto a plush blue carpet made in the image of the Federation flag. He stood there for a full two minutes while the commandant drafted a message on his PADD, seemingly oblivious to Spock's presence.

"You sat in my briefing, did you not?" Pike asked, still engrossed in his PADD.

"I did, sir," Spock replied.

"And what was the first thing I told everyone?"

"To take our seats and quiet down," Spock answered.

Pike's finger paused over his PADD and he slowly looked up at Spock. His eyes narrowed.

"What was the first thing I told you to _avoid_ doing?"

"You instructed us to avoid getting to know you, sir," Spock replied.

"And where did I say you didn't want to stand?"

"On your carpet."

"And where are you standing?"

"On your carpet, though to clarify, I presumed you were speaking euphemistically, and this was where Instructor Morrison indicated I should stand."

Pike scoffed and leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. "To 'stand on the carpet' is an expression for standing before a senior-ranking official for undesirable reasons."

"Thank you for the clarification, sir," Spock said.

"It's a little early to be brawling, wouldn't you say?" Pike asked, his tone growing dry and bitter.

Spock was unsure of how to reply and Pike swiveled in his chair and began working at a computer terminal and added, "That's a nice shiner you've got there, by the way."

" _Shiner_ , sir?"

"Your eye. Looks like Schmidt got in at least _one_ good hit before you snapped his arm."

"He instigated the incident, sir," Spock explained. He was not attempting to assign blame, rather, he wished to enumerate the facts.

"I don't care who instigated it or even how it started: why did you think it was appropriate to break his arm?" Pike asked, glancing at Spock and frowning.

"It was not appropriate," Spock responded. "I did not anticipate his lower bone density and regrettably used more force than was necessary."

"Been in a lot of fights, have you?" Pike mused.

"Yes," Spock replied.

Pike didn't answer immediately but clearly was taken aback by Spock's answer. It was the truth – occasional scraps with other Vulcan boys had plagued much of his youth. As he'd matured and learned to master his emotions more completely, he had become quite skilled at ignoring verbal taunts. Conversely, as his peers had aged, they'd discovered insults were not in keeping with Surak's teachings, and so it had been years since he'd been compelled to resort to physical violence. But Schmidt _had_ attacked him first.

"Did you know you have the second highest entrance exam score on record?" Pike murmured.

"Sir?" Spock replied, seeking an explanation for his sudden conversational shift.

"You do. I personally evaluated your application to Starfleet. The review board unanimously voted to accept you, but I'll admit I had my reservations."

Spock said nothing.

"No one will ever question your right to be here, Trainee Spock, but there are a few who might wonder at your motivations. I understand you were also admitted to the Vulcan Science Academy. That's like the Oxford of Vulcan. Why choose Starfleet?"

"My reasons are personal," Spock replied, more quickly than he'd intended.

"I see," Pike replied. " _Personal_." He typed a few lines of a message on his computer terminal and then turned back to face the young Vulcan trainee.

"I had reservations about you because I know how hard it is to adapt to Starfleet. This initial entry training program has about an average thirty percent attrition rate, but it's gone as high as _half_ in some classes. It hasn't even been two full days of training and this class has already lost twenty percent of the people it started with. And that's almost entirely humans being unable to hack it with other humans."

"Vulcans are widely known to be an adaptable species," Spock argued.

"True, and _smart_. But very few Vulcans choose Federation service. Starfleet's _mission_ is logical, no doubt, but the _execution_ of it very rarely is. Sometimes it gets bitter, emotional, messy, and painful."

"You imply you do not believe I will be successful."

"I think-" Pike's eyes flicked up toward the ceiling. "I think that's up to you. Nineteen Vulcans have served in Starfleet before you and they all had honorable and distinguished careers. But I don't think you have to be a statistician to realize that nineteen Vulcans in eighty-nine years suggests that it takes a very unique Vulcan to adapt to service in Starfleet."

Once again Spock was unsure how to reply.

"I see a lot of potential in you, Trainee Spock. _A lot_. I think if you can find a way to fit in here, you will excel even beyond my expectations of you. But I still think that's a big _if_. Normally I would remove a candidate from training for pulling what you pulled this morning, but I'm willing to write it off as a misunderstanding."

"What will happen with Trainee Schmidt, sir?" Spock inquired.

"Worry about yourself and let me worry about him," Pike snapped. "Now get out of my office and go back to training."

"Aye, sir," he replied, taking a step back and then marching toward the door.

"And Trainee Spock?"

"Sir?"

"I don't know what's wrong with your skin, but go to medical," Pike sneered. "That's not even a request. It's an _order_. Go now."

As he left the administrative building, he passed Morrison and Schmidt. The former gave him a curious look and the latter gave him a more hateful expression.

The medical bay was teeming with dozens of people from other squads complaining of sore muscles and blisters, along with Ruzsa from Sigma Squad. He had apparently slipped from a set of pull up bars during the morning exercises and broken his nose. When he saw Spock enter, he moved chairs to sit next to him.

"So it is true then?" he asked in his thick accent, made worse by nasally speech from a broken nose.

"Explain."

"You and Schmidt. You _fought_ ," he said, gazing at Spock's black eye. "He came in crying like little girl. Said you broke his arm."

"That is an abridged version of the facts," Spock replied.

"That Schmidt. He has bad blood. Lazy. Cares for no one but himself."

"That is your assessment," Spock answered, though internally he agreed with the Hungarian man's appraisal of Schmidt's qualities.

Due to the large influx of patients, it took more than two hours for him to be seen by a clinician. Schassler's suspicions about an allergic reaction were confirmed and the irritant was quickly identified as the standard issue soap. He was given a hypospray of an antihistamine, which worked very quickly in reducing his welts, and the nurse left to get him an alternative soap agent. He sat for forty-five minutes waiting for her to return, dozing lightly and attempting to recenter himself with breathing techniques.

"Sorry it took so long," said a bright voice, snapping him back to full consciousness. "We're a little swamped today. Everyone's here for a few tiny blisters."

"I have severe blisters as well," he said, looking down at his feet.

"Doesn't everyone?" she sighed. "Take 'em off and let's have a look."

The moment he pulled the boots from his feet, she gasped. "Hey, Martina, you _have_ to come see this," she called to the next curtained area.

A woman with dark skin and a stern face slinked around the corner and recoiled at the sight of his feet. His socks were already mostly soaked through with his blood and as he removed them, both women made strange cackling sounds.

"Now _those_ are blisters," the woman called Martina exclaimed. "Might be like the third worst case I've ever seen. You've damn near rubbed off half the skin on your feet."

Spock disliked being put on display for their amusement, but was ultimately grateful when the nurse extracted a dermal regenerator from the pocket of her white medical coat and tended the peeled flesh. She explained the blisters might reform, but the skin would be thicker and they would be far less severe. He thanked her for her assistance, and at 0945 hours he made his way back to his barracks and found Morrison was waiting there with Schmidt and Ruzsa.

"Gang's all here," Morrison drawled. "Let's go."

Spock was mildly surprised to see Schmidt at all, but even more surprised by his placid demeanor. He didn't make eye contact with Spock and was silent as Morrison loaded them into a transport shuttle and delivered them to a firearms range several kilometers away.

They spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon getting familiarized with all of the handheld weapons in Starfleet's inventory. He handled laser pistols, hand phasers, and rifles, and learned their fundamental operating principles and how to perform basic maintenance on them.

They ate rations in the field for lunch and he sat at the edge of a group that included Saxena, Schassler, and Scrivner. The food was highly concentrated and consisted of a strange texture, but he was quite hungry and ate it readily.

"I can't feel my arms," Saxena whined.

"You'll live," Schassler sighed.

"We did like 200 pushups waiting for you to come back," Saxena said, looking woefully at Spock.

"Well, most of us did around thirty or forty and then flailed around on the ground kind of like beached whales when our muscles quit," Scrivner laughed.

"I just thought this course was supposed to get us used to being in Starfleet. I feel like I'm being tortured in some calculated way," Saxena said, devouring some kind of concentrate from a tube.

"To strengthen the mind, the body must be fashioned, bruised, forged, stretched, roasted, and refined. It is meant to suffer," Schassler said.

"That's _deep_ ," Scrivner said, rolling his eyes.

"That's Nietzsche," Schassler replied with a laugh. "It's more dark than deep."

"It is a rather stark philosophy," Spock agreed.

"On the surface, I don't know that it's so different than some of Surak's teachings, though on a fundamental level they _are_ pretty dissimilar," Schassler answered.

"You've read the _Teachings of Surak_?" Spock inquired.

"Twice," he answered. "There are a lot of parallels with the Greek stoics that I find interesting."

"Are you some kind of philosopher then?" Scrivner asked.

"I wanted to study philosophy in college but my dad wanted me to have a more practical job. I opted for nursing instead," Schassler replied. "What about you guys?"

"I do rocks," Scrivner replied with a crooked smile, before adding, "I'm a geologist. I'm from Deneva colony. Mining is the only game in town."

"I was accepted into Starfleet's logistics program right out of high school," Saxena added.

"What about you, Mr. Logic?" Scrivner asked, trading Schassler a bag of hard crackers for a tube of milk concentrate.

"I possess a degree in astrophysics," he admitted, choking down several dry cookies.

"I don't know why, but that doesn't surprise me," Saxena mused. "You seem really smart."

"So, are you going to tell us how you got that black eye, or are you going to make us guess?" Scrivner murmured.

Spock glanced over at Schmidt and saw him conversing with a small girl with shiny black hair whom he thought was called Sagawa. "It is not important."

None of the others pressed the issue further and it was quiet for a few minutes until Quinones began a rampage about finishing their food so they could begin marksmanship qualifications.

"Hey Mr. Philosopher, what's your analysis of Instructor Quinones? Napoleon complex or just plain unpleasant?" Scrivner asked.

"I'm a hobby philosopher, not a psychologist," Schassler deflected.

"Why does he walk around with his thumbs in his belt loops?" Spock asked. "Does that give him better balance?"

Schassler turned his head to see Quinones and said, "No, that's purely just to make him look like an asshole."

"As in an anus?" Spock inquired.

Schassler laughed so hard he spit food out of his mouth onto Scrivner. His three human companions roared with laughter.

"You have the best jokes, Spock, and you don't even try," Scrivner said, clutching his belly.

"If you have time to giggle that means you're done eating!" Quinones barked, looking in their direction.

They spent the later afternoon and early evening firing the weapons they had learned about earlier in the day. Spock found marksmanship easy, as it was nothing more than a simple application of geometry and physics manipulated though steady breathing and the exercise of superior hand-eye coordination. He qualified readily on each weapons system with perfect marks.

They arrived back at the training campus just before dark and ate a quick dinner. Spock continued to watch Schmidt, but he gave no indication that anything had transpired that morning. Schmidt was too involved in a conversation with Sagawa to notice much of anything else.

After dinner they were set to cleaning their barracks room and suffered more mass punishment for various minor oversights, such as a few particles of dirt in one of the air vents or the theoretical streak on the mirror glass in the female lavatory. At 2100 hours, most of Sigma Squad collapsed into their bunks with fatigued delight.

Spock and Schmidt went downstairs to begin their extra cleaning duties without speaking a single word to one another. Spock collected a mop bucket and set to work cleaning the ground level floor again while Schmidt dusted the walls in the stairwells. He worked slowly and methodically, noting that the floor was still remarkably clean from the previous evening.

He finished and returned to the janitorial closet to replace the cleaning supplies and noted muffled sounds coming from inside. It resembled crying and when he reluctantly opened the door, he discovered Susan Spencer in the corner with her knees to her chest, clutching an old-style photograph.

"Forgive me," Spock said, wishing to give her privacy in such an emotional time.

"No, it's ok," she sniffed, motioning for him to come in.

Spock remained frozen in the doorway, uncertain of how to proceed. Any Vulcan in such a state would almost certainly prefer to be alone. Fresh tears sprung up at the corners of her eyes and she rested her chin on her knees, turning her gaze back to the picture in her hand. Spock entered the closet with the mop bucket and gently closed the door. He stared straight at the wall as he emptied the dirty water into the drain in the corner of the floor.

"Do you have family?" Spencer croaked.

"I would not have been produced without an appropriate pair of progenitors."

She scoffed and replied, "I mean, do you have family that you _miss_?"

Spock carefully considered her question. The human concept of "missing" loved ones was an emotional practice he did not engage in. Still, he thought of his mother more often now than he ever had on Vulcan.

"Ugh, I don't know why I'm trying to unload all of this on you," she sighed.

"I do not know either," he replied, wringing out the mop.

"I have a little girl," she said, handing the paper picture to Spock.

He set the mop down and studied the photograph. It was an image of a human child who bore a remarkable resemblance to Spencer: the same pale face, white-blonde hair, and clear blue eyes. She was sitting in a field with a basket and what appeared to be colorfully dyed eggs.

"She is your child?" Spock asked. Susan Spencer seemed quite young to have progeny, but Spock knew little of human growth and development. The girl appeared well into middle childhood and he recalled Spencer telling Morrison that she was only twenty-five years of age.

"Yeah, it was her birthday today. She turned eight."

Spock was familiar with the human desire to commemorate making a full rotation around their local star with a celebration. His own mother had tried a similar custom when he was very young, but his father had always tried to discourage her. He handed the picture back to Spencer without comment.

"Will you sit with me?" she sniffed.

He reluctantly leaned up against the wall next to her and slid down to the floor. His body still ached, but a day of activity had helped loosen his muscles. She breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. "The last few days have been hell. When I think about the fact that I spent her special day slogging around in the woods with weapons and blisters and bugs, I really wonder why I joined in the first place."

"You retain the option to return home," Spock replied, staring ahead at the wall.

"Not really," she said. "It took me five years to get through law school while raising a kid by myself and then when I graduated, there wasn't exactly a whole lot of work for someone with mediocre grades and no experience that paid enough to get by. Well, not anywhere that wasn't on some desolate ice giant colony."

"Service in Starfleet will likely take you far from Earth on occasion," Spock countered.

"Yeah, but I only need to stick it out for eight years and get some legal experience under my belt. My mom is watching Sarah while I'm here and once I'm done with this awful training, I'll be able to call and visit regularly. When I'm done with the Academy, depending on where I'm posted, she'll probably be able to live with me."

She hiccupped and folded the picture and put in the pocket of her shorts. Spock was about to stand up and go upstairs when she said, "Thanks for listening."

"You are welcome."

"And for putting Schmidt in his place," she laughed.

"It is regrettable what transpired between myself and Trainee Schmidt," he argued. "I do not condone violence as a means of resolving personal differences."

"Still, he was well on his way to becoming the worst person I've ever met, but today he was almost tolerable to be around. You're nicer than I thought you were, in your own way," she said with a smile.

Spock nodded deferentially and stood. "My shift is over."

"I'm just going to stay here for a little while," she replied. "I'd like to be alone and I don't want to bother anyone in the barracks. Rutherford gets so mean even if you _breathe_ too loudly."

He left without further comment, signed the log at the duty desk, and proceeded upstairs. He showered quickly with the new soap he had received at medial and laid down in his bunk, tucking his feet in slightly so they wouldn't hang over the edge.

Schmidt was snoring softly on his stomach, as usual, but tonight he was fully clothed. It seemed possible the morning's events really _had_ made a difference in Schmidt's attitude, though it it had come about through unfortunate means.

He was nearly asleep when the bunk shook slightly. He opened his eyes to see the outline of a small figure crawling into Schmidt's bunk by using his footlocker as a stepping stool.

" _Shhhh_ …" Schmidt cooed.

He heard a low, distinctive female giggle. " _We have to be quiet. Rutherford hears better than a bat_."

He could not be certain, but it sounded like Sagawa.

" _Screw her_ ," Schmidt replied

" _What about the guy who sleeps under you_?" she whispered.

" _Screw him too."_

For a few minutes he heard fumbling and attempts to suppress giggling above him, and soon the bed began to rock in a rhythmic motion. Spock stared up at the bottom of the Schmidt's mattress, completely at a loss for words. _They were mating._


	5. Friends

**Day 4 (Wednesday)**

By the time the alarm went off over the intercom at 0600 hours, Annalise Sagawa had returned to her own bed and Schmidt rolled from the top bunk without complaint. For a brief instant, he and Spock faced each other. Schmidt glared at him, but Spock turned indifferently and began dressing for the morning exercises.

Medical had worked wonders on his blisters and though his muscles were fatigued, they were not as deeply sore as they had been the previous day. He'd just completed lacing his shoes when yelling broke out on the female side of the room.

"You are _disgusting_!" cried a voice Spock couldn't identify.

"Both of you shut up before they come up here," someone else hissed.

"Mind your own business, Ryskamp," a third voice shouted.

"I'm sorry, but when I wake up with your dirty socks and underwear on my bed, I feel like I have a right to be pissed about it," the original voice snapped.

Spock wasn't interested in listening to their dispute, and since he was ready, he stood to go to formation early. A tall, stocky female he thought was called Shelby stomped around the corner of the dividing wall and bumped into him. He was in the middle of offering a polite apology when the same voice from before said, "Here, take your dirty clothes with you, or else I'm tossing them out."

Spock was struck in the side of the head by a light piece of fabric that got caught on his ear and Shelby burst into a fit of giggles. Spock removed the cloth from his ear and was repulsed to discover a pair of what appeared to be dirty women's undergarments.

"Nice panties, Trainee Spock," Quinones said, standing casually in the doorway with his arms crossed.

"They do not belong to me, sir," Spock replied. He rapidly dropped the underwear on the ground and turned to leave the room. Leslie Saxena and Angelica Spooner roared with disbelieving laughter and Quinones told them to shut up.

"So… what then? You _steal_ panties?" Quinones drawled.

"No," Spock explained. "They were thrown-"

"Are you really asking me to believe the women in Sigma Squad find you so irresistible that they're literally throwing their delicates at you?" Quinones interrupted.

"Allow me to finish," Spock protested. "They were thrown at-"

"Get downstairs. _Weirdo_ ," Quinones ordered, standing from leaning on the wall and yelling at the rest of his squad mates to hurry up and get downstairs.

"And one of you nasty females needs to come pick these up. It's _gross_!" he roared. "And Shelby, go see Morrison."

Spock jogged down the stairs and to their regular formation area. He met Rylax, who was cheerfully staring up at the sky.

"Beautiful morning, isn't it?" declared the Denobulan.

"It _is_ morning. 'Beautiful' is a subjective term," he replied, looking at gray clouds forming overhead.

"I don't mind the rain," Rylax explained, his speech cutting through his ever-present grin. "It is the rainy season on Denobula. Though I imagine being from Vulcan, you would find the rain unpleasant."

"You assume correctly."

"Ah, one man's joy is another man's angst," Rylax murmured, standing up on the balls of his feet to stretch. "Though again, I imagine in your case that 'angst' may not be precisely correct."

He chuckled to himself and Spock resumed looking dead ahead and said nothing. The two of them waited for another twenty minutes and Spock began to wonder where the rest of the squad was, as the other squads had already formed up and begun stretching.

Soon the side door of the barracks building was kicked open, hitting the brick wall behind it with considerable force. Quinones was screaming. The remainder of Sigma Squad filed out in rapid succession, each of them sprinting over to Spock and Rylax and falling into two equal columns. Spock noted their total number was down to twelve now. Shelby, the thickset woman who had apparently been the intended target of the underwear that had hit him, was not there. Quinones either didn't notice or didn't care.

"Trainee Spock!" Quinones roared, stomping over to him.

"Aye, sir?" Spock replied.

"You're fired!" he screamed, just centimeters away from his face. "You were appointed barracks leader and the barracks are disgusting. Let's see… Trainee Rylax?"

"Aye, sir?" the Denobulan replied behind Spock.

"Congratulations, you're hired. _You_ are the new barracks leader. What do you say, Trainee Rylax?"

"Thank you, sir?" Rylax stammered.

" _Ha_ , don't thank me yet. Since _some_ of you do not know how to clean up after yourselves or secure your equipment, we will conduct special training today, along with the classroom instruction that was scheduled for the morning and afternoon sessions. You picked a bad _day_ for this trainees," he grinned maniacally, looking up at the ominous sky. "It looks like it's going to be a wet one."

They began their stretches and reflected on what had just happened. As barracks leader, he had been responsible for making sure their shared room was held to the standard of cleanliness set forth in the book he was given on the first day. Just the night before, it had been scrubbed and polished to a standard exceeding the one proscribed. Therefore the removal of his position was perplexing, but he recognized the futility of argument.

When their stretches were complete, they moved toward the road to begin their run when Quinones snapped, "Oh no! Trainees Spock and Rylax, up front."

There were a few quiet groans, but no one seemed eager to flaunt discontent and risk group punishment. They kept their complaining to an appropriate minimum, and Quinones seemed to feed on the energy generated by their misery. Quinones marched up to Spock's left and ordered them to begin their run.

With Spock and Rylax setting the pace, Spock found himself uncertain of what to do. He initially maintained a pace similar to the beginning of their last run. They plodded along at a relaxed jog until they reached the corner of the road. Spock was startled when Quinones snarled, "What do you think you're _pulling_ , Trainee Spock?"

"Pulling, sir?" he asked without slowing down.

"If you have enough breath to talk to me, you're not running fast enough. I will make you sorrier than you've ever been if you do not show more effort. Now _go_ ," he yelled.

He heard Leslie Saxena whimper behind him but he lengthened his stride and nearly doubled the pace to a moderate run.

" _Quicklier_!" Quinones yelled.

Spock was about to reply that Quinones had used an incorrect comparative form of the adjective "quick" when he recalled Quinones' threat about having reserve breath to speak and increased the pace again. Rylax seemed to be enduring the pace well enough to his right, but to the rear of the formation the swell of uncomfortable grunting and panting was swiftly raising in volume.

" _Faster_! _Faster_!" Quinones chanted.

Spock complied and as they turned a sharp corner to take the long, straight road to the rear of the barracks building, he could see most of the rest of Sigma Squad trailing behind, with Saxena, Spencer, and Sagawa nearly 200 meters back.

" _Go, go, go_!" Quinones screamed, spurring Spock to take off in a dead sprint for the final 500 meters of their run.

Spock beat them all, including Quinones, and slowed his pace to a jog when he reached the grass. Quinones, Rylax, and Spooner quickly caught up to him, and Rylax plopped down on his rear and attempted to get his erratic breathing under control. Schmidt and Schassler arrived next: the former clutched his chest and put his head between his knees and the latter adopted a position on all fours and vomited.

Scrivner and Ryskamp arrived next with red faces, and over the next several minutes, Ruzsa, Saxena, Rutherford, Sagawa, and Spencer appeared. Quinones strutted back and forth along the sidewalk, fighting to catch his breath. Suddenly, he found something to say.

"You know the one thing that really burns my biscuits, _Trainee Spock_?" Quinones screamed.

"The improper application of thermodynamics, sir?" Spock answered, pondering whether or not Quinones had been using some colloquialism.

He didn't get a direct confirmation, but it was easy enough to deduce the answer when Quinones ordered him to "do pushups until he died." He inferred his punishment would be terminated when his instructor got bored, but there was no way to determine how long that would be. While he executed his task, he heard Quinones moving among the members of Sigma Squad, telling them to "quit whining" or "drink water."

In a rare display of kindness, he also thought he heard him gently tell Spencer to go to medical, though "gentle" was relative. Quinones was gentle when he wasn't speaking in a volume that wasn't equal to that of a chainsaw. Five minutes and three hundred increasingly poorly executed pushups later, he saw Quinones' shoes on the ground at the top of his vision.

"As I was saying earlier, Trainee Spock, it really burns my biscuits when people don't push themselves. Morrison said you ran Monday's 5K in 15 minutes. Today it took you three minutes longer. _Why_?"

Spock's arms were beginning to grow tired from the exertion and he willed himself to keep from shaking. It seemed imprudent to suggest to his human instructor that humans simply were not the biological equals of Vulcans when it came to displays of cardiovascular speed and endurance.

Quinones took a knee next to him and said quietly, "Individual achievement is just as important as working in a team. You came to this course not only to adapt to Starfleet, but also to improve _yourself_. I don't care if you're already light years ahead of everyone else in brains, strength, or stamina. I _know_ you can do more. I _expect_ more. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Spock conceded.

"Now get up and go change for breakfast," Quinones growled.

His arms and chest felt rubbery and weak as he jogged to the door of the barracks. Schmidt was limping his way up the stairs and as Spock passed him, Schmidt looked him dead in the eyes and coldly said, "I _hate_ you."

"Hatred is illogical," Spock replied, walking past him.

"I hate you," Schmidt insisted again, but Spock was already half a flight of stairs above him.

When he arrived in the barracks, the female were yelling at each other. Spooner was holding Rutherford back from striking Ryskamp, and they were all shrieking in an uncomfortable pitch about dirty socks and personal space.

"You might find it beneficial to settle your differences at a more appropriate volume before the instructors arrive," he remarked.

Six female faces turned to him and in near unison said, "Shut up!" along with more personalized slurs, and then resumed yelling at one another. The males were starting to grumble as well, and realizing he lacked sufficient time to perform a regimen of personal hygiene, he began changing into a clean duty uniform.

Schmidt finally arrived in their cubicle and glared at him but didn't speak. Spock neatly arranged the blanket on his bed and his shoes under his bunk in accordance with the guidelines of the barracks room's setup and went downstairs to wait in formation for breakfast.

They were given an atypically long morning meal. Several members of his squad gave him long and hateful glances, but no one spoke. When they were finished, they marched back to their barracks area and as they came to a halt, the first fat drops of rain began to fall.

Morrison descended the exterior steps at the front of the building like an emperor surveying his empire. He yawned lazily and stretched as strolled up to Sigma Squad, seemingly oblivious to the precipitation.

"Good morning, trainees," he declared, strutting back and forth in front of them with his hands behind his back. "We had scheduled classes all day on Starfleet rank structure, traditions and regulations, but Instructor Quinones informs me you've been _bad_."

Morrison fell silent unexpectedly. Spock had anticipated a long speech based on previous knowledge of the instructor's habits. Their uniforms were quickly being soaked through as the rain began to fall more steadily. The communicator on Morrison's belt chirped. He smiled.

"Do you like being wet, Sigma Squad?" Morrison asked.

The formation responded with mixed answers and Morrison shrugged playfully and said, "Let's go inside then."

Spock was uncertain what waited indoors, but based on Morrison's uncharacteristically playful attitude, he concluded the likelihood of returning outside in the very near future was high. In the stairwell, they could hear clanging noises echoing high above them that grew louder as they climbed. When they reached their barracks room, even Spock struggled to contain his surprise at what they found.

Every single piece of furniture had been upended in a random way. His own bunk was stripped of the bedding and laying on its side in the doorway, blocking easy access to the room. He was only able to identify it as his and Schmidt's bunk by the carving some previous cadet had made in the metal frame.

Clothes were everywhere: the locks on the wall lockers had been linked together and were hanging from the forward air vent by a female's brassiere and there were approximately 100 socks tied together in a large ball resting atop the central divider of the room. Beyond Spock's bunk, there was a maze of drawers from their footlockers that led behind impromptu curtains fashioned from their sheets that hung from the tiles in the ceiling.

Quinones popped his head out from between two of the white, hanging sheets and proudly proclaimed, "Look, I made a fort!"

"Trainee Rylax," Morrison grumbled.

"Aye, sir?"

"You are my new barracks leader, are you not?"

"Aye, sir."

"Somewhere in there," Morrison announced, gesturing to the disaster before them, "is the book that shows you how to reassemble all of this. You have one hour."

"Oh come on," Quinones howled. "You're being too generous."

"One hour," Morrison repeated. "Oh, and by the way, we're still scheduled to do traditions and regulations training today, so let's start with general order number one: the Prime Directive. It states 'no starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society.' Everyone understand?"

"Aye, sir," they mumbled.

"Don't make me make you do pushups," he threatened.

"Aye, sir!" they yelled more loudly.

"Well, by my watch, you have fifty-eight minutes left," Morrison said. " _Oh, one more thing_ … It'll be real quick, I promise."

Spock could hear Quinones tossing around something heavy behind the hanging sheets and logically concluded what was about to happen just as Morrison said it.

"You won't be assembling this up here in the room, you'll be doing it downstairs. _On the lawn_."

The expressions on the faces of his squad mates instantly registered as a blend of horror, disbelief, and anger. A few voices began to weakly protest, but Spock was already assessing the room to maximize the efficiency of the task. The furniture would have to be disassembled to get it through the door and down the stairwell, but they lacked even simple handheld tools.

"This will help you recognize the 'full weight' of your decision to not follow the barracks schematic. Too bad your previous barracks leader failed you, huh?"

They all turned to stare at Spock, but Spock looked at Rylax. Being relieved of his position as barracks leader that morning had nothing to do with failure: it had to do with _success_. When he had organized the room to near perfection on the first day, he had obviously defied expectations. The task they had just been given was designed to be impossible to achieve, yet the instructors had sensibly chosen to relieve him of his leadership position just to increase the odds of failure, even if only by a fractional amount.

Members of Sigma Squad began vaulting over the bunk blocking the doorway and the group descended into chaos. Every five minutes, Morrison or Quinones stopped them and made them recite a new general order. Spock located two handheld wrenches and a badly oxidized screwdriver at the back of the janitorial closet and put Spencer to work taking the bunks apart.

Rylax was frantically searching for the loose-leaf bound book with the schematic of the room, and Spock urged him to send people more people downstairs with the smaller furniture first.

"Don't look at Trainee Spock," Quinones snapped at Rylax. "These are _your_ barracks. These are _your_ people, Trainee Rylax."

Rylax sat down in dazed defeat on a sideways footlocker and Quinones yelled, "Fine. You're fired too, Rylax. Spooner, you're up!"

Spooner clenched her jaw and started yelling. "Spock, Schmidt, Scrivner: get the larger pieces of furniture downstairs! Saxena, start working on the locks! Ryskamp, see if you can help Spencer take the bunks apart faster!"

Her voice was shrill, but people were listening to her. Spock complied with her request, though Schmidt clearly wasn't pleased by having to work with Spock. Yet her assignment had been logical: she had chosen the three largest, strongest individuals in the group to lift the heaviest objects.

Spock's muscles were still fatigued from the exorbitant amount of pushups he had performed earlier, but he lifted a disassembled top bunk and began to haul it into the hallway. Schmidt grabbed the adjoining bottom section and followed him.

When they reached the ground floor, Schmidt tried to move past Spock and to carry his half of the bed out into the rain, but Spock stopped him.

" _Piss off_ ," Schmidt snapped.

"I am aware of your negative emotions toward me, however, the logical course of action would be to wait," Spock insisted.

"In case you didn't hear, we were given an _hour_ to get this done," Schmidt sneered.

"A standard we cannot meet. And when we fail, then what? I conclude we shall be required to return the items to the barracks and begin again. Assembling the bunks should logically come last, as it will take the most amount of time."

Schmidt scowled darkly but set the bunk outside under the overhang leaning up against the wall and stomped back up the stairs. He found it remarkable that Schmidt chose logic over animosity. It was certainly not something he had anticipated.

As Spock predicted, they were only halfway to completion when they ran out of time. Spooner was relieved of her position, Schassler was instated, and they were instructed to take everything back upstairs and begin again. They came closer on their second attempt, and by the time Spencer was placed in charge, Spock calculated that if they continued at their present rate without further interference, success would be attainable.

The rain was relentless, but the harder it rained, the more resolved Sigma Squad seemed to become. It was made more difficult by their instructors' arbitrary quizzes over introductory regulations, as each time someone failed to answer to their satisfaction, they were stopped and punished as a group.

"Trainee Spock, what is the Starfleet order against taking another sentient life?" Quinones roared over the din of the rain.

He stopped assembling the doors to Ryskamp's wall locker and answered, "Starfleet order number 2, sir."

He started to return to his task when Quinones asked, "And what regulation covers the imminent destruction of a starship?"

Though the instructors had only covered general orders and Starfleet orders, Spock recalled the answer from his studies prior to arriving on Earth and replied, "Starfleet regulation 3, sir."

Quinones' eyes narrowed and he bellowed, "Everyone stop: stop what you're doing. You can resume when Trainee Spock gets a question wrong."

The rest of Sigma Squad slowed and watched in anguished disbelief. He blinked the water out of his eyes and stared at the instructor. He noted the trickle of water running down Quinones' chin from the downpour and the squish of water in his own boots.

"What is directive zero-seven-two?" Quinones asked, crossing his arms.

Spock was initially reluctant to answer. He had two choices: answer the questions correctly and cause his squad to fail in their third attempt to complete the task, or lie and say he didn't know the answer, which would directly contradict what Quinones had told him that morning after their run. He believed he could lie convincingly enough, but that would be both lying and violating his instructor's orders.

He contemplated Quinones' motivation for pitting him against the other members of the squad in such a way. He knew a logical conclusion existed within this problem Quinones constructed, but he could find none that didn't result in further punishment or moral quandary.

"I know you know the answer to this, Trainee Spock," Quinones said.

"Affirmative, sir," he admitted, spitting out droplets of rainwater.

" _Then what's the answer_?"

"The answer is that there is no answer that will satisfy your need to draw this futile exercise out until the day is at an end, sir," Spock responded.

Quinones' eyes flashed and he opened his mouth, but suddenly closed it again. He gazed at something over Spock's shoulder, cocked his eyebrow, and yelled, "Back at it Sigma Squad! You have fourteen minutes remaining."

Spock resumed mounting the door onto the wall locker when he sensed someone standing behind him. He glanced out of his peripheral vision and identified Commander Pike. He straightened his back to stand at attention for the commandant and others among the squad began to take notice and slow down.

"Carry on," Pike said, smirking and motioning with his hands.

The others went back to frantically working on their tasks but Spock remained still. He was surprised to see the senior-most officer of the training course out of doors during a rainstorm, but like Morrison and Quinones, he seemed completely oblivious to the weather.

He bobbed his head slightly, looked Spock up and down, smirked, and said, "Maybe there's hope for you yet, _Spock_."

Pike walked through the exterior recreation of the barracks, making subtle suggestions to the trainees as they raced against time. With two minutes to spare, they stood at the corners of their bunk awaiting inspection.

Over the rain, he could hear a peal of laughter coming from the barracks building, but kept his head and eyes straight ahead. The other squads were on their way to the afternoon meal, and were apparently taking delight in the scenario before them.

"It's a little _dirtier_ than I'd like," Morrison grumbled, gently touching a muddy handprint on Saxena's blanket. "Time for lunch, Sigma Squad. Let's go."

They formed up and were the last of the squads into the mess. Steam billowed from their drenched clothing due to the cool air of the environmental settings in the community dining area. Hundreds of eyes glanced in their direction and smiles littered the room.

Spock took a bowl of vegetables and began eating quickly. He realized many of his habits were growing indecorous: when he'd learned to feed himself as a child, he'd been instructed not to take in a portion so large that chewing would significantly alter the shape of his face. Yet little he had been taught had fully prepared him for the experience of this course.

What lay before him was simple mathematics, relating the volume of food in his bowl and his increased dietary needs in the face of grueling physical activity to the amount of time he was given to consume it. Manners were the least critical variable in the equation.

When the meal was complete, they were marched back to the barracks. Rather than return their furniture and belongings to their third floor, they left it in the rain and were ushered upstairs into their empty communal room.

Morrison gave a lengthy lecture about Starfleet's customs and courtesies and reviewed the general orders they'd learned earlier in the morning. The room was colder than the mess hall, and his wet clothing was causing him to lose body heat at an increased rate through conduction and evaporation.

He did his best to appear mentally alert while attempting to regulate his internal temperature through meditative techniques, but he was surprised to find his ability to control his body systems was severely diminished. After two hours of attempting to stave off hypothermia, his autonomic system engaged and he began shivering.

"When is it appropriate to forgo rendering honors to the colors?" Morrison asked.

They collectively began to answer asynchronously, " _When in ranks, when in_ …" when Spock felt a nudge on his shoulder.

"Come with me," Quinones whispered.

As Spock followed him into the hall, he noticed Schmidt and Sagawa looking curiously in his direction and saw Schmidt whisper something quietly to her, causing her to nod. It would be illogical to speculate about the nature of their communication.

In the hallway with the door closed, Quinones asked, "Are you sick, Trainee Spock?"

"No, sir," he replied, fighting to keep his teeth from chattering.

"Your color is a little… _off_ ," Quinones said, crossing his arms in a way that suggested he was trying to intimidate him.

"I do not believe it is life-threatening," Spock replied, reluctant to explain that his physiology was poorly adapted to cold and wet conditions.

"I'm sending you to medical."

"Aye, sir."

"But I'm going to send you down there with a little bit of advice. Everything you do here has a purpose. Literally, _everything_. We don't just torture you because we think it's fun. _Ok, maybe a little_ …" he smiled to himself. "But seriously, this course is designed to see if you can _lead_ people, and one of the hallmarks of being a leader is recognizing when _you_ need help and weighing that against the needs of your crew and your mission. Yesterday when you came to formation looking like you had sex on sandpaper, I waited for you to tell me that you needed to go to medical, because you _needed_ to go to medical. But the _commandant_ had to tell you."

"Sir, may I inquire as to the lesson you wished to impart this morning by requiring me to choose between-"

"I thought Vulcans worshipped logic or whatever," Quinones interrupted. "That one's for you to figure out."

"It is incorrect to say Vulcans 'worship' logic. We simply-"

" _Go away_ ," he said, pointing down the hallway toward the stairwell.

He left medical at 1800 hours after having received an injection of a tri-ox compound that would enable him to more rapidly adapt to the colder climate. The rain had ceased, but the humidity hung in the air. He rendezvoused with the rest of his squad in the mess hall, ate a quick dinner, and afterwards spent two hours returning the furniture to their barracks.

He had two hours until his extra duty shift scheduled from 2100 to 2300, and additionally, it was once again his turn to have a shift on roving guard from 2300-0100 hours. Rylax, Spooner, Spencer, and Schassler had all been given extra duty along with him for their failed efforts as barracks leaders and Schmidt was still on extra duty as well.

He had only half an hour to attempt to dry his bedding and clothing before his shift began and was only able to wring most of it out in the janitorial closet before he was due downstairs. He did his best to drape items he would need for tomorrow across the foot of his bunk, but knew the lingering humidity made his efforts futile.

They were given miniscule brushes and told to clean the baseboards of the common areas. Schmidt went to work alone at the far end of the hall, while he, Rylax, Spooner, Spencer, and Schassler took up a post at the front of the room.

"Are you feeling better?" Spencer asked him quietly, breaking the calm silence of the room.

"My state of health is satisfactory," he replied.

"Oh, I guess I was kind of worried about you up in the barracks during that training," she explained.

Health was just one of many matters Vulcans preferred to keep private.

"Are we going to tell him, or what?" Spooner asked suddenly, looking up at the others and then resting her gaze on Spock.

"To what are you referring?" he asked.

"Schmidt seems to be under the impression that Quinones and Morrison are being so hard on _us_ because they're trying to rattle _you_."

"Do you agree with his assessment?" he asked without looking in her direction.

"Well, _I don't know_ ," Spooner admitted.

"What evidence does he offer to support his theory?" Spock replied, continuing to polish the baseboards with the three centimeter long brush.

"Well, the run this morning, and the thing with the regulation questions. _I don't know_. He saw Pike talking to you, and then Quinones wanted to talk to you, and he's telling people you're, I don't know… _like their little pet_."

"I mean, I _do_ kind of see it," Spencer agreed. "But it's not like you're trying to be. You know, their _pet_."

"Today Trainee Schmidt told me he hated me. Yet I fail to see how his estimation of the cadre's opinions of my performance will be of any viable consequence."

"Oh _honey_ , you're not used to backstabbing, are you?" Spooner laughed.

Spock was perplexed as to why she referred to him as an insect byproduct, and asked for clarification. Spooner and Spencer giggled.

"Schmidt is trying to convince people to… _I don't exactly know_ ," Schassler said. "I think right now he's just trying to get a feel for what everyone in the squad thinks about you. If I were to guess, I think he's going to try to do something to get you kicked out."

"Why are you sharing this information with me?" Spock asked, trying to understand their motivation for the disclosure.

"Because we, I dunno, want to be _your friends_?" Spencer said with a shrug. "I mean, Vulcans are allowed to have friends, right?"

"Close acquaintanceships are prevalent on Vulcan," he agreed, surprised by their willingness to adopt such a personal term after having known him for such a short time.

"Fine," Schassler sighed. "As your ' _close acquaintances_ ,' we're just trying to let you know that we've got your back. You're good people, Spock."

"Yes indeed," Rylax smiled, his head popping up from behind Schassler's stooped back.

"Oh, and I think Saxena has a crush on you," Spooner chimed. Spencer shot her a dirty look, but Spooner shrugged and added, "What? She _does_."

"I do not understand your terminology," he said, looking carefully at Spooner.

"Oh _come on_ , you haven't noticed how she follows you around and looks at you all doe-eyed?" Spooner asked, sitting up straight to stretch her back.

"Could you clarify the definition of the term 'doe-eyed'?"

He truly did not understand what she was attempting to imply. She closed her eyes, smiled, and sighed deeply.

"You really haven't noticed?" Spencer said, her face smiling in disbelief. "I don't know _why_ that doesn't surprise me, but it doesn't."

"I believe it is time to retire for the night," Rylax announced.

"You are _way_ too happy," Spencer groaned.

"Well, me and lover boy here aren't quite done for the night," Schassler yawned. "We have roving guard after this."

Spock canted his head slightly and attempted to deduce the meaning behind Schassler's peculiar diminutive. Schassler smirked and said, "Let's go."


	6. Discoveries

**Day 5 (Thursday)**

It was drizzling during Spock and Schassler's rotations around the outside of the barracks on roving guard. It mattered little because his clothes were still damp from the previous day's activities, but he disliked the flecks of mist that blurred his vision.

Of all his squad mates, Michael Schassler was the most intriguing because he was the most logical. He was cerebral and often prone to long silences suggestive of internal reflection, yet he was also distinctly human in his language and mannerisms.

For an hour, neither of them spoke, and Spock occupied his time considering the various interpretations of the lesson Quinones had been attempting to impart during his interrogation in the rain. Prior to joining Starfleet, he had never considered performing any task at a standard less than his best. Among humans, it was obvious that it was wiser to occasionally limit himself to avoid their disgruntlement.

"So, how are you holding up?" Schassler finally asked.

"Clarify."

"What I mean is, what are you thinking about?"

"I believe this training has created a paradox I had not anticipated," Spock replied.

"Huh?" Schassler asked, wiping the rain from his eyes with the back of his free hand.

"The better I perform in a given task, the more some members of our squad grow to dislike me. Conversely, if I do not apply myself rigorously, the cadre dislike me. It is creating mutually conflicting conditions that ensure I cannot be effective, since success in Starfleet requires I earn the respect of both superiors and peers, and eventually subordinates."

"Yeah, it's a real Catch-22," Schassler mused.

"I do not understand your idiomatic language," Spock replied.

"A Catch-22 is a no-win scenario. Like you said, a _paradox_ ," Schassler explained. "Are you talking about what Quinones pulled with you earlier when he made us stop working while you answered questions until you got one wrong?"

"Precisely."

"I actually wondered about that too, but I didn't hear what you said to him," Schassler replied. "Whatever it was, it was the right answer."

"But I did not answer his question. I merely offered a display of disobedience in refusing the answer the question he posed."

"Defiance doesn't seem like a very Vulcan trait," his squad mate stated.

Schassler spoke sensibly: rebellion _wasn't_ a Vulcan characteristic, but it was one that had landed Spock in Starfleet all the same.

"What did you say?" Schassler pressed.

"I explained there was no answer that would satisfy his need to draw out the futile exercise he was requiring us to endure."

"You _serious_?" Schassler asked with a grin, turning the beam of his flashlight to the tree line as they turned the corner of the building for the twenty-fifth time.

"I do not engage in human jesting," Spock answered.

"No, of course you don't."

"I am curious: what is your judgment?"

" _Wow_." Schassler laughed.

"What is the source of your amazement?"

"Well, let me just say I'm flattered that a Vulcan is asking for my help in solving a personal conundrum," Schassler said quickly, before thinking to himself for a few moments and adding, "If I were to _guess_ , I'm going to say that when a Vulcan is told to do something by someone in a position of authority, they don't question it."

"That is incorrect," Spock said. "Were the order morally questionable, unfeasible, or highly illogical, a subordinate would certainly have cause to question his or her superiors."

"Well, ok, _sure_ , but you wouldn't whine about it, right? Say you were given an order that was moral, legal, _possible_ , and logical but you didn't _personally_ like it, then what?"

"In that case, it would be logical to comply," Spock answered.

"Well, not so with humans and most other species," Schassler explained. "I think what Quinones was trying to get at is that sometimes you can be faced with making unpopular decisions that negatively affect a lot of people. He gave you an order that was incredibly unfair and unnecessary and wanted to know if you'd simply carry it out to the detriment of yourself and everyone else, or question his order."

"You are implying that he wanted me to defy him?" Spock queried.

"Well, in a manner of speaking, I guess so."

"That is extremely illogical," Spock replied.

"Well, _yeah_ , but that's humans for you. I take it you've never really spent much time around humans until now."

"My mother is human," he admitted.

" _Really_? I didn't know. I would have never guessed," Schassler stated, before awkwardly adding, "I mean, _no offense_."

"You have given no offense. Truthfully, I cannot recall a time when my mother ever posed such a paradox, but you seem to imply such contradictions occur frequently among your race."

"All the time," Schassler agreed. "But I think the point is to know how to pick your battles. I think a lot of other people in our squad are coming close to hitting their breaking point and I know a couple would have snapped if we had to keep breaking down and rebuilding furniture in the rain. By refusing to give into Quinones' ridiculous order, you picked your battle and won, and it meant a lot to the rest of the squad."

Spock weighed Schassler's assessment carefully and realized there was another conclusion to be drawn that he hadn't previously given serious consideration to.

"Do you believe Schmidt is correct in his assumption that our instructors are treating us unfairly due to my presence here?" he asked.

"I don't know," Schassler admitted. "I don't _think_ so. I mean, you seem to get singled out more than some other people, but I wouldn't say it's enough to make a difference. Honestly, our squad _does_ seem to get treated worse than some of the other squads I've seen, but I only ever see glimpses. It's hard to get a clear picture of whether it's better or worse for us, so I'm just trying to put my head down and get through what's in front of _me_."

"That is wise," Spock agreed.

"Besides, I did happen to see Delta Squad rolling around in muddy, soapy water in the culvert at the back of the barracks because apparently a few people in their squad don't shower regularly enough," he laughed. "Who knows? Maybe that's coming for us too. I mean, Ruzsa kind of has an 'odor,' if you know what I mean."

"Your laughter regarding impending punishment is curious," Spock remarked.

"I can either laugh about it or cry," he replied. "But really, we're almost done."

"We have only completed 9.623 percent of this course," Spock argued.

"Woah, _mathlete_ ," Schassler scoffed in surprise.

"Is that an insult?"

"It was a _joke_. Sometimes people tease and use nicknames with their friends. I dunno. Anyway, what I meant was, we're almost done with Hell Week."

"What is the definition of the term, 'Hell Week'?"

"I've heard things. People say the first week is always the worst. My uncle did this training fourteen years ago and I think his exact words were something along the lines of 'weeding out the tiny-hearted.' It gets a lot better after the first field training exercise. I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty hard-pressed to keep this up for another five weeks."

Spock reflected upon this new information and considered how it might alter Schmidt's irrational obsession with hating him and concluded it would probably matter very little.

When their shift was over and they turned their flashlights over to Rusza and Sagawa and signed the log, they arrived in their barracks room to the sound of a strange hissing noise. The clothing and linens he'd set out on his bunk to dry were missing. From the other end of the room, Saxena's head appeared around the corner of Schassler's cubicle and she waved for them to join her. Spooner, Spencer, and Saxena were drying their bedding with a vacuum device that had been retrofitted to suction water.

"You ladies are _heroes_ ," Schassler whispered, his tone struck with amazement. "Thank you _so_ much."

"Yeah, Scrivner is a genius. He stole the vacuum from the floor's janitorial closet and figured out how to make it into a wet vac," Spencer explained.

"We just figured you guys might like to sleep on dry sheets tonight," Spooner added.

Normally he would have considered the liberty they took with his personal belongings to be a gross breach of propriety, but given the circumstances, he was fascinated by it. He knew humans required more sleep than he did and it was sensible to conclude that if he was tired, they must be even more so. Yet they chose to forgo sleep to provide for his and Schassler's comfort.

"That was very… _considerate_ of you," Spock whispered.

Leslie Saxena handed him his dry uniform and a pair of socks and underwear. Her hands shook slightly and she smiled as though she were in pain and all she said was, "Uh, _here_."

He recalled Spooner's suggestion that Saxena "had a crush on him," and had been unable to derive the meaning of that particular euphemism. Later when Schassler had referred to him as "lover boy," he concluded they meant to imply Saxena considered him as an attractive potential mate. Yet her current behavior seemed to contradict that. She seemed _afraid_ of him.

He could not specifically identify when she had ceased being talkative and adopted this more nervous behavior, yet he had spoken to her little since the first morning of training when he'd told her of her human tendency to complain of physical discomfort.

Twenty minutes later, his blanket was mostly dry and he retired to his own cubicle. Schmidt was fast asleep on top of his bare mattress, fully clothed and not snoring as per his usual convention. It was nearly 0100 hours and he rapidly began to drift into sleep when Schmidt said, " _Dad_?"

Spock remained still and focused his ears. Schmidt began muttering, " _I don't know… I'm sorry…. Yes, turkeys… You never have time_."

Spock slowly extricated himself from the lower bunk and observed Schmidt visually. He appeared to be sleeping, or at least had taken no notice of Spock's presence.

" _Why_?" Schmidt breathed, thrashing violently and turning over onto his side to face Spock.

Spock watched him for several more minutes until he began snoring and then settled into his own bottom bunk. He was too tired to ponder Schmidt's peculiar ability to speak while asleep.

Five hours later, he woke to the painfully loud alarm over the intercom and dressed himself in his gray duty uniform rather than his athletic attire. Today there would be no physical training session: they would eat breakfast early and receive further instructions.

The rest of the squad seemed wary of the day's unknown schedule. Spock could not understand their illogical need to speculate about the instructors' intentions to induce further creative forms of punishment. It seemed to Spock, at least, that even when they were informed of the planned activities of any given day, arbitrary punishment was simply to be expected.

They were swiftly shepherded through the morning meal and returned to their barracks. Quinones gave a two-hour lecture and demonstration on the use of navigation using a tricorder device and then informed them they would spend the day practicing their newly acquired skills at a nearby training location.

They were stopped halfway through when Commander Pike arrived. Spock looked at the commandant, but Pike asked for a private audience with Spencer instead. The two left and training resumed.

Later as they waited for an intraplanetary transport shuttle to ferry them to a site called Redwoods Training Area, Morrison briefed them on their upcoming exercise and schedule for the next three days.

"This morning you learned scanning and navigation techniques," he droned. "Now we're going to see how well you learned it. I already know the answer is 'you didn't, because it never fails that we have to come out and rescue some you before you get eaten by grizzly bears."

"There aren't grizzly bears here," Rutherford whispered.

" _Pushups_ , Rutherford," Morrison growled without even looking in her direction.

"As I was saying, you have been issued tricorders, but as a safety measure, you have also been outfitted with tracking devices so that when you _are_ eaten by a bear, we can at least have some hope of recovering a few pieces of your corpse to send home to your families."

Spock was well aware Morrison had a tendency to jest and speak euphemistically. In fact, he was _more_ likely to joke than be serious. He was fascinated by the man's obvious preference for sarcasm and sardonicism.

Spock had considerable difficulty in identifying when Morrison's words and intentions were in sync. Judging by his squad mates' responses to Morrison's orders over the previous four days, he hypothesized they detected his sarcasm through vocal inflections and body language he had no experience in interpreting.

"As an additional precaution against bear maulings, you will also work in pairs. Each team will be responsible for locating sixteen points on the training course using your tricorders. The points will be identified as small, blue spheres that look like this," he explained, holding up a palm-sized dull, blue ball.

"Your tricorders are calibrated to position you within ten centimeters of these points, so if you are doing this correctly, you _will_ find them. That being said, they are _not_ easy to find. Some are on the ground, some are mounted in trees, and I think a few are located at the bottom of water sources. I hope you like to swim. When you find a point, you will scan the code on the top on your PADD to prove you've found it. Any questions so far?"

"No, sir," they replied in unison.

"Now, if anyone has the idea that they're going to cheat, no team in this squad has the same set of points. The training area is large, cadets. _Very large_. There are a total of 768 unique points in the training area, and each team has been assigned their sixteen points at random by the computer so that you will each be walking the same approximate distance. Does everyone understand?"

"Aye, sir," they answered.

Spock noticed Spencer sneaking into the back of the formation and Quinones and Pike speaking quietly in the distance. Spencer had red eyes and flushed cheeks and Spock deduced from their previous encounter in the janitorial closet that she'd been crying.

They loaded into the shuttle for a twenty-minute flight to the Redwoods Training Area, and Morrison continued to taunt them with increasingly fantastical stories about what lurked in the training area, featuring everything from dragons to genetically modified rabbit attack drones.

"That guy has some screws loose," he heard Saxena mutter with a look of disbelieving contempt.

"Since I can't make you do pushups midflight, you can join Schmidt and Spock on extra duty tonight, Trainee Saxena," Morrison said, interrupting his story about a Klingon burial ground supposedly located within the training range. "I might have some screws loose, but my ears work just _fine_."

When the back of the shuttle opened, Spock was fascinated by what lay before him. He was amid the tallest vegetation he'd ever seen that formed a high canopy. There was _nothing_ like this on Vulcan.

"Quit gawking and get over here," Quinones yawned, scratching himself. "We're going to put you into teams."

Spock glanced at Schmidt began assessing the probability that he and Schmidt would be paired together. It was logical to assume the pairing would not be random and the leadership seemed to have an indiscernible algorithm for deliberately creating interpersonal conflict within the squad.

He was mildly surprised when Schmidt and Spencer were assigned to work as a team and he was partnered with Scrivner. He observed several silent tears fall from Spencer's eyes that she seemed to be taking great pains to conceal, but he failed to see the point in speculating about her anguish.

He and Scrivner received their tricorders and a PADD with relevant topographical and climate-related information. Spock viewed the list of their assigned points, plotted them against the map, and quickly analyzed the geometry. Less than fifteen seconds later, he had determined the most efficient route to collect each point and minimize the distance they would have to travel.

"If we begin at coordinate H and travel to coordinate D, we shall-"

"I'm not going to argue the finer points of mental geometry and calculus with a Vulcan," Scrivner interrupted with a chuckle. "But I agree, let's start with the farthest points and work our way back."

"Precisely," Spock replied.

They were the first to depart from the starting area; Scrivner held his tricorder in front of him at a low angle to monitor their position. They spoke little and Spock used the time to quietly meditate to himself among the gargantuan trees.

It took an hour of walking to locate their first point and another ten minutes to find it. Eventually they discovered it was buried under six inches of soil, and Scrivner scanned it into the PADD and they reset the tricorder for their next point.

"It's really beautiful here, huh?" Scrivner mused.

"Yes," Spock concurred.

"Where I come from on Deneva colony... it's mostly rocks," Scrivner added. "Anyway, this tricorder navigation stuff is a piece of cake. I've been doing it for more than twenty years, only with geological surveys."

"I recall you mentioned you were a geologist."

"Yeah. You know, you can tell a lot about a place by the rocks," Scrivner said. "Like here, you can tell there's an ocean nearby. Everything visible in the topsoil is mudstone or sandstone with small pebbles."

"Fascinating." The truth was he was fascinated for two separate reasons.

As a Vulcan, he'd had a considerable amount of education in every major scientific field, but geology was not a particular specialty of his. Therefore he hadn't studied it since primary school and much of what he had learned on the subject related to his home planet. Like most Vulcans, he possessed an inherently curious mind and a desire for meaningful knowledge, and so he listened patiently for the next two hours as Scrivner described surveying for duridium and the tribulations of handling pockets of natural gases during deep excavations.

Yet more interesting than the information he was acquiring from Scrivner was Scrivner himself. All of his other squad mates often concerned themselves with the exchange of intimate personal details when speaking with him privately. Yet it contented the older man with the thinning red hair to talk exclusively about geology.

Spock was grateful for this, until Scrivner arrived at a conversational tangent about sapphires. "Linda loved 'em," he said wistfully.

Spock's eyes glanced from the tricorder to Scrivner, searching for further explanation.

"My wife," he added.

There was a pause of several seconds, and Spock asked, "It seems illogical to express affection for a precious stone."

Scrivner laughed boldly and agreed, saying, "True, but like most ladies, she liked things that sparkle."

Spock noted his usage of the past tense. It seemed likely that his mate was deceased and hadn't simply stopped "loving" sapphires, but it would have been distasteful to inquire further into Scrivner's personal situation.

Scrivner bent down to scan their seventh point while Spock triangulated their next coordinates.

"It was a cave in," Scrivner said suddenly.

Spock turned to face the man and cocked his head.

"In the summers, my company would go up North to Camp Aapilak to mine cortenide when the ground was only partially frozen. Linda always stayed home with the kids when they were little, but when they got older she decided it would be nice to be together. Most people still chose to live underground up by the poles, even in the summer, just from the radiation and the cold. Well, the thaws were really bad last year, and runoff from the ice caps finally collapsed the tubes in the North side of the camp."

"Your loss is… regrettable," Spock said slowly, unsure of what was appropriate to say. "I grieve with thee."

"Do you have kids?" Scrivner asked, sitting down next to the blue marker point.

"No."

"Do you mind if I ask how old you are?"

"Vulcans consider it impolite to discuss age," he explained.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't know," Scrivner replied. "You just seem like you really have your stuff together. _Responsible_. I thought maybe you had kids. They give you a whole different outlook."

"I am twenty Federation standard years of age," Spock said after a pause.

" _Really_? I would have never guessed that," Scrivner said in astonishment.

Spock was uncertain what Scrivner was implying. On Vulcan, age conferred a certain amount of inherent respect, yet he knew from watching his mother worry over lines in her face and gray hair that aging was detestable among humans.

"Do you think you ever stop being a father? I mean, even if you outlive your kids?"

"I would say that you have ceased being responsible for acting as a parent, but that does not alter the fact that you once were a father," he replied, hoping he was being properly decorous.

"Parents are supposed to keep their children safe," Scrivner mused.

"Life is not safe, nor can it be rendered safe on behalf of others. It seems to be a very human failing to assume there must be some answer for every death. This is not so. Death is simply a part of life," Spock argued.

"Parents aren't supposed to bury their kids," Scrivner sighed.

"While your circumstances prove that it is certainly possible that it could happen, I would agree that it does violate the natural order of life for an advanced, sentient species," Spock replied.

"You're a _poet_ ," said Scrivner wryly, before adding, "But thanks. You're like Schassler in a lot of ways. You guys are wise beyond your years."

"Perhaps we should locate our next point," Spock said, wishing to avoid conversing about such a taboo subject as grief any further.

Scrivner nodded, put his hands on his knees to stand up, and said, "If the map's right, our next point is at the bottom of a pond. I don't suppose Vulcans are good swimmers?"

"Vulcans have denser bones and less body fat than humans, giving your species a particular advantage in that task," Spock explained.

"Do you know how to play rock, paper, scissors?" Scrivner asked, raising his eyebrows.

Three hours later, they returned to the starting area having successfully found all sixteen of their predetermined points. Scrivner was still wet from his swim in the muddy pond and Spock now knew the rules to a crude game that children often played when selecting a candidate for an unpleasant task. If he understood the simplistic rules correctly, it was only logical to select paper when playing a geologist.

They were the first ones to complete the course and found Morrison sleeping on a folding stool with his back against a tree and his hat covering his face.

"Sir?" Scrivner called.

"It had better be an emergency if you're waking me up," he said without moving. "And I mean like, _on fire_ and being actively swarmed by bees kind of emergency."

"We're finished, sir," Scrivner explained.

Morrison sat up, caught his hat in his hands, and scowled. He checked the scanned points on their PADD and the current time. He rolled his eyes and said, "Well, _that_ figures. You both just set a training course record. Go… _chase squirrels or something_. I don't care."

Spock and Scrivner sat in the shade of a tree about forty meters away from Morrison and ate their field ration packs in silence. Spock decided sleeping would be unwise and settled instead for gazing at the ground and lightly meditating. An hour later, Schassler and Spooner returned, and then Schmidt and Spencer, followed by Rylax and Rutherford and Sagawa and Ryskamp.

By 2000 hours, Ruzsa and Saxena hadn't returned and Morrison called Quinones on his communicator to transport them back to the starting area. When the pair materialized ten meters to the left, Morrison began braying with laughter.

Their flesh was an angry shade of red with darker red splotches and they each looked equally miserable.

"Looks like you found more poison oak than map points!" he said, continuing to roar with laughter.

It was a quiet shuttle ride back to their barracks, aside from Morrison's random utterances. Spock reclined slightly in the side-facing jump seat and folded his hands in his lap. Schmidt and Spencer were directly across from him and appeared to be in the middle of a tense conversation.

When they returned to the barracks, they turned in the supplies they had been issued for the day's training exercise and were marched to the mess hall. He stood in line behind Spooner and Sagawa, and though he was not intentionally eavesdropping, he heard much of their conversation by virtue of excellent hearing and forced proximity.

"I don't know what he sees in her," Sagawa whined.

"I don't know what you see in _him_ ," Spooner retorted. "I would rather breastfeed a litter of orphaned wolverines than even hang out with the guy."

"He's not as bad as all that," Sagawa argued. "He's actually really sweet when you get to know him."

"He's a pompous ass," Spooner yawned.

It was simple enough to deduce they were discussing Schmidt, whom as far as he was aware had spontaneously become Sagawa's mate just two days earlier. The squad ate quickly and returned to the barracks. Spock had just enough time to shower before joining Schmidt downstairs for extra duty.

Halfway down the stairwell, Schmidt had dropped a small, light blue, rectangular card and hurriedly shoved it back in his pocket. Spock observed but said nothing, believing it illogical to confront Schmidt about his suspicion that he'd stolen the cadre's office access card without a greater body of evidence.

Schmidt took the mop bucket and carried it to the third floor, and Spock set to work cleaning the windows downstairs. Saxena returned from medical with a clearer complexion twenty minutes later and began dusting surfaces throughout the common room.

He worked slowly and methodically, eventually making his way up to the third floor. Saxena was wiping down the windowsills and didn't speak, even when they eventually came to the same window. He noticed her cheeks flush.

"Have you taken ill again?" he asked.

" _Huh_?" she answered, looking at him with wide eyes.

"Your face is reddening, as it was this afternoon," he explained. "Instructor Morrison said you came into contact with an poisonous species of plant."

"Oh, _yeah._ I'm fine. They gave me a hypo at medical and it's all better now," she mumbled.

"You are certain? Your complexion is growing redder."

"Oh, uh, _well_ , it's hot in here," she said, moving onto the next windowsill without finishing the one she'd been working on.

"Have I caused some offense?" he asked.

"No, why-why would you think that?"

"Your behavior appears altered, and last night Spooner said you 'had a crush on me,' though I am unclear of the-"

"She _told_ you?" Saxena yelped, taking a step back and staring at him with her mouth open.

"I am not well-versed in human idioms or emotional displays and I inferred from the available evidence that I had offended you in some way," he explained.

She stared at him at length, opening her mouth and closing it several times as well as shaking her head. Over her shoulder, he saw the door to the cadre office open and Schmidt and Spencer emerge into the hallway. Saxena reeled around and said, "What are you _doing_?"

Schmidt closed the door and held his index finger up to his mouth. No one spoke for several seconds and then Saxena stormed up to them with her arms crossed.

"Are you trying to get us all in trouble? You broke into their office? _Why_? _What are you doing_?" she demanded.

Saxena was younger than Spencer, but stood nearly fifteen centimeters taller and she was obviously using her height differential to intimidate her.

"Mind your own business, _nosy_ ," Schmidt snapped.

"It _is_ my business if we all get punished for this," Saxena said, raising her voice slightly and causing obvious discomfort for Schmidt and Spencer.

"I agree," Spock said, moving in their direction.

"This isn't what it looks like," Spencer pleaded, motioning with her hands for them to all walk away from the office.

" _Then what is it_?" Morrison bellowed, appearing at the end of the hallway with his arms crossed.

"We were performing our assigned extra duties," Spock replied.

"You, Schmidt, and Saxena were. _Maybe_. But what about you, Spencer?"

"I uh- I thought- there uh-," she stammered.

"You are a _terrible_ liar," Morrison sneered. "Maybe we could all go discuss this in my office, but the door is shut. It locks automatically, you know, and I seem to have misplaced my access card. Anyone know where I might be able to find it?"

"No sir," Schmidt answered.

" _Really_? That's interesting. I just came from the commandant's office, and I know _he_ has a spare card. Maybe we should all go down there and on the way, I'll tell you what kinds of prison sentences trainees get after they are caught stealing secured cards from their instructors to break into official Federation offices and then lie about it."

Morrison's typical lackadaisical attitude had completely vanished and all that remained were a snarl and dangerously dark eyes.

"Sir, me and Spock-" Saxena started.

"No, I'm not really interested, Saxena," he interrupted. "You can explain it to the commandant. I can tell you that he's awake because I just came from there, but he's going to be _very_ displeased that he has the four of you standing on his carpet at midnight."

Saxena opened her mouth to renew her protests but Spock shook his head. He noticed Spencer's face was pale and Schmidt's jaw was clenched.

"Let's go, felons," Morrison barked, pointing in the direction of the stairwell.


	7. Road to Redemption

**Day 6 (Friday)**

"Listen, sir, this is my fault. The others had nothing to do with it," Spencer said as they were marching across the open lawn.

"No, it was _me_ , sir," Schmidt said.

"It's a little late for confessions now," Morrison said icily. "And you guys should really work on getting your stories straight."

"Honestly, sir, if you just _listen_ -" Spencer pleaded.

"No talking!" Morrison snapped.

Spock analyzed the faces of his squad mates. Saxena's face was pallid and bore a dazed expression. Schmidt seemed angry. Spencer had begun crying. He could not logically deduce what Spencer and Schmidt had been doing in the cadre office. It was inappropriate to involve himself in their private matter and illogical to speculate, but he could not deny his curiosity.

The reached the headquarters building and Morrison jerkily rung the buzzer and the door clicked. He grabbed the handle and ripped it open forcefully, and stormed down the long hallway ahead of them.

Spencer and Schmidt appeared to be silently arguing through increasingly erratic facial expressions, which were quickly neutralized once they reached Pike's office. Morrison drummed his knuckles on the closed door, and Pike surprisingly answered it himself rather than summon Morrison inside.

"Is Susan Spencer with you?" Pike asked.

"Yeah, but it's more than that. I have three others," he said, glancing at them over his shoulder.

Pike peeked around the door to look at them and his eyes narrowed.

"Well, bring them in," Pike replied, opening the door more widely to allow them all passage into his large office.

The four of them plus Morrison stood on the light blue carpet facing Pike's desk. The commandant slid gracefully into his chair and drummed his fingers on the hard surface.

"So Lieutenant Morrison, would you care to tell me why a third of your squad is standing in my office at-" he glanced at his computer terminal, "0017 hours?"

"They broke into the cadre office on the third floor, sir," Morrison replied.

" _All_ of you?" Pike said, scanning each of their faces.

Spock heard Saxena squeak next to him but she didn't reply.

"I think I know what this might be about," Pike said quickly before anyone could speak. "Can you take Spock, Saxena, and Schmidt into the hall while I speak with Trainee Spencer?"

Morrison's face contorted in mild confusion, but he quickly agreed and Spock returned with the others into the hallway. Moments after the door was closed, they heard Spencer utter a slight scream. Saxena looked inquiringly at Schmidt and then to Morrison.

" _Is she ok_?" she asked aloud, seemingly to anyone who might answer.

"Mind your own business right now, ok?" Morrison replied.

Spock could detect the sounds of muffled crying through the door of Pike's office. Morrison's communicator chirped and he scowled. He flipped the device open and walked down the hall several meters to speak with less risk over being overheard, but continued to glare at the three trainees.

"What is going on?" Saxena muttered in a barely audible tone without moving her lips.

"Spencer's kid ran away. They've been looking for her all day," Schdmit explained.

"How does that justify breaking into the cadre office?" Spock whispered, turning his back so Morrison wouldn't observe him talking.

"She talked to the police this morning and Pike told her he'd let her know if there were any updates. She thought of a place they should look and wanted to call, but they told her to let the police handle it. She has her PADD in her personal bag, but the instructors locked all of our bags in their office until graduation. She just wanted to call her mom and ask her to check this one place."

"So you _stole_ Morrison's access card?" Saxena mumbled.

"You catch on fast," Schmidt sneered. "Look, I'm already on thin ice here. I think it's over for me no matter but, but Spencer really wants to be here. If Pike asks you, say _I'm_ the one. Leave her out of it."

"That is illogical. He is speaking with her right now and it is reasonable to conclude based on her previous remarks that she will confess," Spock argued.

"Don't you dare," Schmidt growled in a low register. "Don't you _dare_. Her _kid_ is missing. She just wanted to call and help find her."

"I understand she was driven by emotional motivations," Spock whispered, trying to comprehend what Schmidt's interest in defending a woman who had viciously rejected him could be. "But that does not excuse-"

"Then don't say anything," he insisted.

"You would ask me to _lie_?" Spock rebutted.

" _Yes_!" Schmidt hissed. "Until your pants are on fire."

"A curious expression," Spock said.

Schmidt was about to reply when Pike called Schmidt into the office. Schmidt pursed his lips and shook his head at him slowly. Spencer emerged with her arms crossed and tears freely flowing down her face. Spencer and Schmidt exchanged stern looks as they passed.

" _Dammit_!" Morrison yelled, slamming his communicator shut. "Listen you miscreants, I have to go back to the barracks. I don't know what Pike's going to do with you, but maybe after today you won't be my problem anymore."

As he stormed away, Saxena hugged Spencer and asked, "Is everything ok?"

"Yes, well, I don't know, but my daughter is home now. She's _safe_ ," Spencer sobbed.

"Then why do you cry?" Spock asked.

She let go of Saxena and grabbed Spock in a deep embrace. Her emotional effusions startled him and though he knew she didn't intend to commit such a serious breach of conduct, he felt compelled to tell her she was causing him significant discomfort. She seemed to sense this on her own and let him go, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Then she started crying again; he was unable to explain her irrational behavior.

"What _happened_?" Saxena pressed.

"My daughter ran away sometime last night. My mom realized she was gone this morning and called the police and managed to get hold of Starfleet. Commander Pike told me what happened this morning and offered to let me go home, but explained that missing this training would mean I'd have to wait until the next course started in January. So he promised he'd keep me informed and sent me to do the navigation stuff with everyone else."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Saxena said, starting to tear up as well.

"Everyone thinks I cry too much. They're probably right. Schmidt and I ended up being partners during the land navigation course and he started making fun of me because I was crying. I started yelling at him and it all came out. It was weird; it was like he was _human_ or something. Anyway, he said he ran away from home as a kid all the time. He always went to his tree house. And then I remembered we used to have a tree house in our old backyard across town. I wanted to call my mom and ask her to look there, but Morrison said I needed to focus on the training and let the police do their jobs."

"What an _ass_ ," Saxena hissed.

"I know, _right_? Morrison wouldn't listen, so while he was sleeping at the rally point, Schmidt took his access card and said he could get me into the office to use my PADD and call. _That's_ what we were doing in the office. I am so sorry you both got dragged into this. I told Pike everything that happened and took full responsibility for it."

"Schmidt has asked us not to implicate you," Spock said.

"That's _crazy_ ," she moaned. "This was my idea. Pike already gave him a second chance once. I doubt he'll get another one. Starfleet is all Schmidt _has_."

"What do you mean?" Saxena asked.

Spencer was about to reply but then shook her head, saying, "I already said too much. It's really _his_ business. And I realize he's an annoying, impossible jerk, but he really can be a decent person."

"Were you right about the tree house?" asked Saxena.

"Yeah, actually," Spencer smiled. "Well, _Schmidt_ was. Thing is, Sarah wanted to come home this afternoon but the ladder broke and she couldn't get down. It's summer, but it still gets cold at night in Wyoming. When they found her, she was in the early stages of hypothermia. Schmidt saved my daughter's life."

Spock considered Spencer's story and wondered at the motives her child had for fleeing home. When he was younger, he often escaped into Vulcan's Forge after being tormented by the other children. It had disappointed his father, but he had always taken the punishment in stride.

The one occasion he avoided punishment for running away was when a Shatarr, a poisonous fire lizard indigenous to the Forge, had bitten him on the ankle. Spock had spent the evening slowly trying to crawl home and had been close to death when his father had found him.

He'd spent two days in the hospital and recalled his mother and father fighting over his bed when they'd presumed he was unconscious. It was the first time he remembered hearing them argue and he disliked being the catalyst for their harsh words toward one another.

Still, they'd stayed together by his bedside through the night and when the healers pronounced him well enough to go home, he followed his father to his study to accept punishment. His father had only said, "It upsets your mother when you run away. She is human. She worries for you."

 _She is human._

 _His mother. Spencer. Spencer's daughter. Schmidt. All human. He_ was _half_ human.

Listening to Spencer explain that her daughter ran away because she had moved to a new home, was being teased at school, and missed her mother made him consider something he'd never previously given thought to. She had also said that Schmidt confessed to running away in his youth as well. Was this common among humans? Were his childhood departures some human trait he'd never accounted for?

Perhaps he had more in common with Schmidt than he realized. He'd spent most of his life trying to emulate his father and suppress the human side his mother had bestowed upon him. He'd always presumed he'd been successful, but perhaps it was illogical to believe he could be objective in making a self-assessment of his humanity.

"Please don't tell Pike about Schmidt," Spencer begged, interrupting his reflection.

"He has already asked me to lie for you. I cannot honor both of your requests, and the truth is I prefer the _truth_ ," Spock stated.

Spencer looked at Saxena expectantly, and the younger girl looked away in shame.

"Look, I don't really want to lie to the commandant either," Saxena admitted.

" _Please_? I would do it for you," she said, looking at them both.

"I would not ask you to lie on my behalf," Spock explained.

"You also didn't ask for dry clothes and sheets, but we did that because we're your _friends_. Some things go without saying, Spock. Or are Vulcans too honorable-"

She was interrupted when the door opened. Schmidt emerged wearing an expression Spock could not identify.

"Um, Commander Pike wants to talk to you," he said, looking at Spock. "I already gave him the access card. He knows it was me. Leave Spencer out of it."

"You _jackass_ ," Spencer snarled, crossing her arms. "I already told him _I_ did it."

"Yeah, which is why he probably wants to talk to _him_ ," Schmidt sighed, looking sternly at Spock.

Spock nodded and moved toward the door while they continued to bicker. Their desire to accept blame on behalf of the other person was puzzling, especially considering they still seemed to dislike one another. Seconds later, he stood in front of Commander Pike's desk, knowing he was innocent of any wrongdoing but contemplating the logic of telling a lie.

"How are you doing, Trainee Spock?" Pike said, drumming his fingers on the desk and then leaning back in his chair.

"My basic needs are met and I am in satisfactory health, sir," he said.

"Care to tell me what happened tonight?"

"Please specify, sir."

"With you, Schmidt, Spencer, Saxena, and the access card," Pike sighed.

"Trainee Saxena and myself were cleaning the windows," Spock replied, looking at the blue access card at the end of Pike's desk. "We were not involved in any way, sir."

"But Spencer and Schmidt were?"

"That seems a possible conclusion you could draw, sir," Spock said.

"I want the truth," Pike said, sitting up in his chair in clear irritation.

"The truth is that I cannot be certain, sir," he explained.

And technically, it _was_ true. He saw them both emerge from the office, but both had claimed to be the culprit of breaking into it in the first place. There were numerous logical deductions he _could_ make, but he couldn't be _certain_.

Of course, Spencer had implicated Schmidt in stealing the access card, but that wasn't what Pike had asked. He hadn't asked for Spock's logical _opinion_ , he had asked for Spock to explain exactly "what happened," which he could not do with the available information. Humans might call it a technicality, but he _was_ Vulcan after all, and Vulcans embraced technicality.

"Look, Trainee Spock, it's late and I'm not really in the mood for Vulcan mind games," Pike said, looking him directly in the eye. "Who broke into the office?"

"That is a question with several reasonable answers, depending on context, sir," Spock replied.

"What's _your_ answer?"

"I did not witness the unauthorized entry, therefore I cannot be certain, sir," he said.

" _That's_ your story?" Pike sighed.

"Yes," Spock answered.

"That's all you really know and you'd swear by it?" Pike insisted.

"I know many things, sir," Spock answered, sensing Pike's growing irritation. "And I do not generally engage in telling untruths."

Technically a half-truth was not an _un_ truth.

"You know, my father used to say that a man was only as good as his word," Pike mused.

"Trustworthiness is an admirable quality, sir," Spock agreed. "Though it is curious the adage does not apply to females."

Pike sighed, smiled, and said, "But along the way, I also learned that you can tell a lot about a _person_ by the caliber of their friends."

"Yours is a statement with several logical inferences, sir," Spock replied.

"I'm saying that it's important to have friends worth protecting, and it's also important to tell the truth."

"It is indeed a paradox, sir," Spock replied.

Pike sighed and grabbed the access card. "Get out of my office, Trainee Spock. You're dismissed. You and Trainee Saxena go back to the barracks. Send Spencer and Schmidt back in."

"Aye, sir," Spock replied, turning to leave.

"And Spock?"

"Sir?" he responded, turning crisply to face Commander Pike.

Pike scowled, but allowed his face to fall into a smile. He shook his head and motioned for him to leave and said, "Never mind, Trainee Spock."

Spock nodded subtly and departed the office. Spencer and Schmidt were whispering furiously between themselves and Saxena was sitting on the floor with her knees curled up to her chest.

"What did you say?" Spencer murmured.

"I presume Commander Pike intended our conversation to be private in nature, given he chose to speak to me alone. He wishes to speak to you both together," Spock replied.

Spencer and Schmidt looked at each other nervously, and then returned to Pike's office.

"We were instructed to return to the barracks," Spock said quietly to Saxena.

"He doesn't want to talk to me?" Saxena asked in disbelief.

"It would not appear so."

" _Are we in trouble_?" she asked, the pitch of her voice growing shrill.

"No, Trainee Saxena, you're not in trouble," Pike called from his office, his voice muted through the door. "You're dismissed."

Her eyes grew wide but she closed her mouth. She scrambled to her feet and they walked down the darkened hallway in silence, excepting the sounds of their footfall echoing on the hard walls.

"What do you think will happen to them?" she whispered.

"I cannot say. They are both guilty of a serious offense," he replied.

"Yeah, but _obviously_ there were extenuating circumstances," Saxena said.

"It is illogical to argue the merits of the case to me, as neither of us will ultimately decide their punishment," Spock explained.

He held the door for her to exit the building and she crossed her arms across her chest and grimaced. They walked quietly down the sidewalk, until Saxena stopped.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Schassler told me that your mother is human," she said.

"That is correct," he replied. "Why is that of interest to you?"

" _Well_ , so then, Vulcans and humans? Oh, _never mind_. It's not important," she answered, walking around him quickly.

He watched her walk several meters ahead and he lengthened his stride to catch her.

"Are you certain I have not offended you in some way?" he asked, moving slightly ahead of her.

"Yes," she said, stopping again in her tracks. "I mean, _yes_ , I'm sure you haven't offended me."

"Then what is the source of your emotional distress?"

"I look emotionally distressed?" she said with stiff alarm, crossing her arms over her chest again.

"I admit I am not the most proficient judge, but it does appear so."

"The _truth_ is, Spooner wasn't wrong. I do- I like- Oh, _I don't know_ ," she said, uncrossing her arms and storming past him once again.

"It seems you are attempting to avoid engaging me in conversation. I do not-"

"I _like_ you, _ok_?" she snapped, turning back on her heel to face him.

"You also have many likeable qualities," he replied, uncertain why she seemed so angry in expressing her regard for him.

"I like you… _a lot_ ," she mumbled.

Spock could see her complexion reddening again even in the dim light of the lampposts. He sensed she was attempting to imply some deeper connection than friendship.

" _Say something_ ," she hissed, tears welling in her eyes.

"Are you implying that you have developed romantic affection for me?"

She gawked at him and the first tears rolled down her cheeks. "I thought it was obvious."

"I have great respect for you," he began.

"Great respect?" she stammered.

"But I do not return your affections," he explained.

"Ugh, this is so _embarrassing_ ," she wailed, wheeling back around and swiftly marching back toward the barracks.

He was uncertain how to proceed. The logic in him wished to seek her out and resolve their misunderstanding, but what had just transpired was not logical. Rather than simply speak her mind, she ran away in tears. He felt ill equipped to comfort her and sensed that comforting her would give her the incorrect impression that he shared her romantic sentiments.

He strode slowly back to the barracks and contemplated the fickle and unpredictable nature of humans. He often wondered how his father and mother came to be bonded, given that Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan held even more conservative beliefs than his half-Vulcan son did. As he turned the corner, he encountered Scrivner and Spooner on roving guard.

"Did something happen to Saxena?" Spooner asked. "She's bawling her eyes out. What did you do to her? And where did you guys come from?"

"I have done nothing to her," Spock replied. "We are returning from Commander Pike's office."

"What happened?" Scrivner asked.

"That is a private matter," Spock answered, walking past them both to avoid discussing it any further.

When he arrived in the room, he could faintly detect the sounds of Saxena sobbing into her pillow. He sat down on his bunk and removed his shoes and uniform, and nestled between the stiff white sheets.

He hadn't slept properly for any length of time since his arrival, and though his body was physically exhausted, his mind was too active to sleep now.

Humans were a most complex and perplexing species. One moment, they were sworn enemies, and the next, they were fiercely defending one another. The ease with which they forged and broke friendships and attachments was disconcerting. He resumed his earlier reflections about his own inherent humanity and did his best to reconcile the two halves of himself with what he knew of both humans and Vulcans.

He began to drift into the space between wakefulness and sleep when Schmidt crawled into the upper bunk startled him awake. He spent the next several hours reminding himself that it was illogical to speculate about what might have transpired in Commander Pike's office until he was surprised by the morning's alarm.

The routine had already become so familiar he was only dimly aware of the next few hours of standing in formation, running, pushups, yelling, eating too quickly for comfort, and more standing around waiting. Despite his exhaustion, he noted Spencer had returned from Pike's office as well and suspected Saxena was making every conceivable effort to avoid being in close proximity to him.

They spent the morning on the lawn behind the barracks, receiving hours of instruction on routine landing party procedures. He struggled to stay awake, but he was one of many in Sigma squad with the same issue.

"Are you _sleepy_ , Sigma Squad?" Quinones roared, snapping his focus back to reality.

"No sir," they answered quickly.

" _Then why is Rusza asleep_?" he shrieked.

The Hungarian man was sitting upright, but his chin was against his chest. Spooner vigorously shook his shoulder and he moaned.

"On your feet," Quinones said plainly. "Right. _Now_."

They began jumping jacks while Quinones continued to lecture.

"Tonight you will embark on your first field training exercise. You will need the stuff I am teaching you. If you are _asleep_ , you cannot hear what I am teaching you. Do you see the fundamental problem, Sigma Squad?"

"Aye, sir," they yelled.

Spock observed a number of his squad mates appeared to be rapidly descending into disorientation. Saxena had stopped and had her hands on her knees, squatting slightly and staring off into space. Rutherford had taken a seat and was shaking. Quinones marched through the formation, stopping in front of Spooner. She had tears running down her cheeks but continued to perform the exercise.

"Do you want to quit, Trainee Spooner?" Quinones asked.

"I'm not a quitter!" she yelled, just centimeters from his face.

He lurched back slightly and smiled.

"What about you, Trainee Scrivner? Do you want to quit?"

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"Nothing wrong with honesty, I suppose," Quinones drawled, moving along the line of his rapidly deteriorating squad mates.

"And you, Trainee Spock?"

He remembered Quinones' earlier lesson about knowing when to seek help and sensed this was simply an extension of the same logic. He was feeling dizzy and would soon be on the verge of _needing_ to quit. Most of the other members of his squad had already reached their respective limits.

"It would seem logical to abandon this exercise before sustaining an injury," he said. "Therefore, quitting is advisable."

Spencer had fallen on all fours next to him and was retching. Quinones grimaced at the sight and called the group to a halt. Only seven of the twelve members of Sigma Squad were still on their feet and those who _were_ seemed to be struggling to remain that way. Spock found it difficult to stop the trembling of his muscles and maintain his equilibrium.

"Back to the barracks," Quinones announced. "Except for Spencer, Saxena, Rutherford, Rusza, and Scrivner."

Climbing the stairs to the third floor was slow going and when they arrived in the communal barracks room, they discovered Morrison leaning against the room divider with his arms crossed. They filed into the room and looked at him anxiously.

"Go to bed," he said, waving his hand around the room casually.

No one moved.

"Are you deaf or what?" he asked, pushing off from the wall in a skipping motion.

"What's the catch?" Spooner asked.

"The 'catch' is we don't want you losing your minds on tonight's training mission, or just keeling over _dead_ ," he said, uncrossing his arms in a grand gesture. "Makes for a lot of messy paperwork."

Spock glanced around the room and made eye contact with Schassler, Rylax, and Spooner.

"What do you want? You want me to tuck you in like I'm your mommy? Kiss you on the forehead and sing you a lullaby?" Morrison snarled. "I have _hours_ worth of nursery rhymes, in case you don't remember."

The remainder of the squad quickly scattered to their bunks. Spock didn't speak to Schmidt and Schmidt seemed content to ignore him. He didn't allow his mind time to begin analysis of Quinones' decision, but quickly fell into a deep sleep.

It was 2130 hours when they were roused from their bunks. He was still tired, but his mind felt far more alert and focused than it had in days. Morrison was dancing and banging a wooden stick on the metal bunks in a rhythmic fashion.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!" he yelled gleefully. "Get into duty uniforms and get ready to pack."

Spock stood and stretched himself slightly. He saw Saxena sitting on the floor and putting her boots on and when she saw him looking at her, she scooted further toward her bunk and out of view behind the dividing wall. He sensed there would be no immediate way of repairing their acquaintanceship and wondered if it would ever be possible.

"Alright, shut up, Sigma Squad," Quinones bellowed. "We depart in an hour, and there's a lot to do and still a lot to cover."

They spent twenty minutes filling their rucksacks with canteens of water, portable bedding, and other survival items. Quinones continued his lecture of landing party procedures while they worked and an hour later, they were escorted out of the barracks and marched three kilometers to the shuttle pad.

The other squads were already there and waiting patiently to depart. Morrison appeared with a large black box of supplies and began sorting through them.

"In fourteen minutes, we will depart for the Adirondack Training Area. You will be working in teams of six for this mission. Let's see… Rusza, Rutherford, Scrivner, Sagawa, Spencer, and Ryskamp: you will be Alpha team. Rusza will be your team leader. That means Schmidt, Spooner, Saxena, Spock, Rylax, and Schassler: you will be Beta Team. _Your_ team leader will be Schmidt."

Spock pondered whether or not Quinones' team selection had been entirely random or carefully chosen for some unknown purpose.

"Let me speak to the team leaders. The rest of you sit tight with your thumbs up your butts until we get ready to bounce," Morrison said.

Spock sat quietly next to his gear, easily ignoring Morrison's euphemistic language. Saxena picked up her rucksack and moved far away from Spock, sitting conspicuously with her back toward him.

"What'd you do to her?" Schassler asked, sitting next to him.

"I have done nothing to her," he replied, not wishing to discuss what had occurred between them in the early hours of the morning.

"Don't want to talk about it? That's fine," Schassler mused.

"I'm guessing she told you she likes you?" Spooner asked, sitting down on his other side.

"It would be indelicate to speak of it," Spock said with a measure of finality.

"Yeah, that's probably true. None of our business," Spooner said. "It was none of my business telling you in the first place, but what's done is done. Can't unring a bell."

"An adequate metaphor," Spock agreed.

"Can you believe they put Schmidt in charge?" Schassler asked, looking over his shoulder to see him deep in discussion with Morrison.

"It would be illogical to speculate about the cadre's motivations."

"Illogical, sure. But it's a way to pass the time," Schassler smiled.

"Time will pass regardless of how one chooses to occupy-"

"Do you ever stop being such a- I don't know- a _Vulcan_?" Spooner chuckled.

"Are you implying I should abandon my-"

"On your feet," Quinones yelled. Schmidt was returning to the group, and the shuttle's boarding ramp had been lowered. "When we get on site, your team leader will brief you on your mission. You are to follow their instructions just as if it came from one of us. Understood?"

"Aye, sir," he replied, glancing at Schmidt.

Schmidt's eyes were fixed ahead and he heard Spooner sigh behind him and mutter, "Yeah, this is going to be _great_."


	8. Bonds of Blood

**Day 7 (Saturday)**

They followed Schmidt around the thick forest for several hours. The night was dark, damp, cold, and teeming with tension. Schmidt had explained that their mission was to locate ten points using the tricorder to navigate. They were in competition with the other team to locate all of their markers first and had to return to the rally point by 1700 hours the following day.

Spock had mapped the points and plotted a course, and if they could follow the map in a straight-line fashion, they would cover exactly twenty-five kilometers. The rough terrain would make that impossible, however, and Spock calculated that navigating around a large river and two steep rock faces would add another nine kilometers to their journey. And that didn't account for smaller obstacles that _weren't_ included on the map.

They would be required to establish a camp and rest for a minimum of four hours, maintain a log, and communicate with their cadre via communicators every two hours. They were also to avoid interaction with the other team, and anyone else in the training area at all costs.

According to their team leader, there would be several Academy personnel moving throughout the course who intended to stun trainees they caught sleeping, talking too loudly, not maintaining situational awareness, or not following the course instructions. Schmidt had told them in no uncertain terms that he would get punished severely if he lost anyone to the cadre due to carelessness, and anyone who was stunned and transported back to the Academy training campus would have to repeat this mission before graduating.

It was 0300 hours and they had already located two points and were in close proximity to the third. Schassler had climbed several meters up a large tree to try and find it, and Saxena was digging around the base of the same tree with her hands. She had taken great care to avoid him since their departure, and he did not wish to agitate her.

" _Got it_ ," Schassler said, raising his voice to just above a whisper.

He read the marker's identifier to Rylax, who entered it into the PADD for their log. It started to drizzle slightly and the team's mood sunk with the weight of the precipitation.

"We should set up our camp up ahead," Schmidt announced.

Schmidt's performance as team leader had been adequate thus far. Spock had been unsure of how he would perform and behave without the ever-present threat of the instructors nearby, but Schmidt had participated eagerly, had accepted the opinions of others, and had made reasonable decisions.

They moved a hundred meters to the crest of a gentle hill. The towering trees provided some cover from the rain, but the ground was already wet.

"This is going to be one hell of a miserable night," Schassler mumbled, pulling a sleeping bag and poncho from his rucksack.

"I need someone to keep watch," Schmidt said. "I want shifts that are an hour long."

"Trainee Schmidt, I am willing to keep watch through the duration of our rest period," Spock said.

He wasn't seeking to gain Schmidt's favor, necessarily, but he knew he would not rest well in such cold and damp conditions. Remaining active and on his feet would enable him to maintain a higher body temperature.

"Everyone has to get a couple hours of sleep," Schmidt insisted. "Including you. You can have the first shift. Wake me up in an hour."

Spock acknowledged Schmidt's order and set to work stringing his poncho between two trees to shelter himself from the rain. He sat on the waterproof cover to his sleeping bag and periodically patrolled the perimeter of the camp, scanning the thick foliage for signs of the cadre or wildlife with his small infrared light.

His Vulcan physiology gave him the ability to see slightly longer wavelengths than his human counterparts, and thus this infrared flashlight wouldn't be visible to any of the instructors moving through the tree line. Humans had the advantage with the shorter wavelengths and could more easily perceive shades of purple and blue than Vulcans. His color vision was superior to either species, thanks to his mixed biology.

This place was alien to him and he found himself thinking of Vulcan, with its warm colors and arid climate. He could hear the movements of each of his teammates as they rustled in their sleeping bags and shivered against the damp. It was taking considerable effort to avoid shivering as well.

" _Spock_?" a female voice whispered through the darkness.

He twisted around and saw Spooner a meter and a half behind him. Her dark skin blended her slightly into the dark night, but his eyes focused and he could see her hunched over and holding her poncho tightly around her body.

"I can't sleep," she said sheepishly. "I'm _cold_. And this place gives me the creeps."

"An odd expression," he mused.

"Can I talk to you?"

"We are already speaking," he replied. "Your species has a curious tendency to request permission for a thing after it is already done."

She plopped down next to him unceremoniously and scowled. "Saxena told me what happened between you two. I just want to say again that it was really none of my business to tell you anything. I apologized to her, but I feel like I should apologize to you too."

"I do not believe an apology is in order. It seems likely she would have informed me of her feelings even without you acting as a catalyst," he responded.

" _I don't know_ ," Spooner said thoughtfully. "Everyone gets harmless little crushes from time to time. Maybe she would have gotten over it. Either way, she definitely doesn't want anything to do with you right now."

"Perhaps you could enlighten me on the ability of human females to one moment express affection toward an individual, and the next moment, alienate that individual entirely."

"I can explain it in one word," she smirked. " _Embarrassment_."

"Embarrassment is illogical," he responded.

"No, it _isn't_ ," she argued. "Embarrassment is a valuable tool that prevents people from committing or repeating any number of social disasters."

"An interesting analysis," he mused. "Though I disagree with your assessment on the value of humiliation."

"Well, anyway, I'm sorry I was a blabbermouth. I didn't even think about how awkward that would be for you. Though of course, 'awkward' is just another way of saying embarrassed, and if you say that's illogical, well, I guess there's no point in being sorry for that either. Because, _you know_ , you weren't embarrassed."

"Are you utilizing sarcasm?" he asked, finding a notable parallel in Spooner's tone with Morrison's usual pattern of speech.

She stifled a laugh. "I guess I just thought you probably don't get a lot of human girls coming on to you, and it might have been a little confusing."

"You imply that I should have handled the situation differently."

"Well, _no_. If someone tells you they like you but you don't like them back, you should tell them. Obviously some ways of letting them know are better than others, but-"

"It is not that I do not _like_ her, to use your imprecise term. She is a person worthy of respect. It is merely that I have no romantic attraction for her."

"Yeah, I get that," Spooner replied.

"I do not know how to repair my acquaintanceship with Trainee Saxena," he admitted. "She wishes to avoid me, yet our present circumstances make that impossible and will only make this mission and this course more difficult."

"That's where I really don't know how to help you," she said. "She'll probably get over it eventually, but just give her some space."

Spock nodded.

"I know that's pretty terrible advice, you know, _do nothing and wait it out_ , but it's all I have," Spooner whispered.

He checked the time on the PADD, realizing he would need to wake Schmidt in seven minutes. She seemed to intuitively know what he was thinking, because she said, "He's not turning out to be as bad at being team leader as I would have thought."

"I agree."

"Maybe Spencer was right. Maybe he just got off on the wrong foot. _Eh_ , time will tell," she said, standing to return to her sleeping bag.

Spock was uncertain. When Spock woke Schmidt for his shift, Schmidt growled and uttered a characteristic string of profanity. He _did_ rise to perform the task, however, and Spock settled into his sleeping bag and fell into a deeply meditative state despite the cold and wet.

They set off again at 0715 hours. Schmidt had been unwilling to wait for them to eat breakfast so they ate ration tubes as they walked, though Spock noted quiet grumbling among several of his teammates over the perceived injustice of being denied a proper meal. They easily collected their fourth and fifth points and proceeded to their sixth.

It would be their most treacherous point to get, as it was located midway along the ridge of a steep rock face that overlooked a lake. There were two obvious methods of approach: a longer one that took them up and around, and a shorter one that would require them to walk a narrow path cut into the rock.

"It's definitely doable," Spooner argued. "Worst case: you fall, you go for a swim. I say let's just go big or go home."

"The map indicates there are boulders underneath that lake which might cause injury should someone fall on them," Rylax argued.

"There's no such thing as a hundred percent _safe_ ," Schassler countered. "I'm with Spooner. Let's just go the fast way."

"This is a training mission. There is no logical reason to undertake unnecessary risk in this situation, since there is nothing to be gained," Spock said, siding with Rylax.

"We still have to be back by 1700," Saxena added, deliberately avoiding looking in Spock's direction.

"A deadline we shall easily meet, even if we take the more conservative option," Spock replied.

"Well, then _you_ both can stay here and we'll get it done faster," Spooner said, looking at Spock and Rylax in exasperation.

" _I'm_ in charge of this mission," Schmidt said with a measure of authority. "We can't split up: we have to stay together. That was part of the mission briefing, if you remember."

"Well, _fearless leader_ , what's your decision?" Spooner said with a biting tone.

"Going the faster route doesn't mean we have to be unsafe," he said, gritting his teeth. "We'll just move carefully, single file, no sweat."

Spock thought Schmidt's choice was reckless, but not _so_ much so that it posed a probable and immediate threat of permanent injury or death. When they reached the rock face, they formed a line and cautiously proceeded with Schmidt in the lead.

The path gently sloped upward and began to narrow. After about a hundred meters, they were nearly ten meters above the lake. The stone was still slick in some places from the rain several hours earlier and the path cut into the side was worn and broken away in some areas. Schmidt stopped the team twice to test his weight on several loose rocks.

"The marker should be another fifteen meters ahead," Rylax called.

Spock scanned for the blue marker along the rock face but couldn't see it. He had considered the possibility that the marker would be in the lake, as their coordinates did not indicate an altitude. He was about to mention this to Schmidt when his thoughts were pierced by a bloodcurdling scream and the sound of falling rock.

" _Oh my God_ ," Spooner yelped.

He heard the chaotic sounds of his teammates yelling and scrambling, and Spock turned smoothly and deliberately to see Saxena struggling in vain to hold onto the side of the sheer rock face. He immediately looked down and saw a large boulder nearly ten meters below her. If she fell, it would not be into the safety of the water, but onto the smooth gray rock below.

"Hold still," Schmidt called to her.

Saxena began screaming as her grip was giving way, and Spock looked down and saw a smaller cut in the rock below him. Without stopping to explain, he shrugged off his rucksack, sat down, and carefully slid over the edge of the path to land on the cut four meters below. He sidestepped carefully to Saxena's position until he could move no further.

He could reach out his hand and touch her back, but lacked the leverage to pull her to safety without falling himself. Schassler was leaning over the edge of the path trying to reach her while the others dug through their bags to make a makeshift rope out of sleeping bags.

"You must jump to your left," Spock directed her.

" _No_ ," she screamed, eyeing the distance between them.

It was precarious, but he noticed her arms were shaking and badly scraped. He was not certain she would be able to hold on for much longer. He extended his right arm.

"No, _please_ ," she begged, slipping further.

"You will soon fall if you do not comply. It is not a fall I believe you will survive," he explained.

She screamed again. He could hear Schmidt on the communicator asking for assistance and Spock believed there was a chance she might be beamed to safety before she fell. That proved incorrect, because a moment later, she completely lost her grip and began to violently flail.

Spock anchored the fingers of his left hand as best as he could into the rock face behind him and grabbed her sleeve. She jumped at the last minute, and precariously landed on the small cut next to him. For a few tenuous seconds, they struggled to maintain their balance, until he fell back against the rock and held her tightly. She was panting and crying, and muttering words of thanks and disbelief.

"If you guys can step to the left, we can pull you up," Schassler shouted.

Saxena was still shaking so he kept his hand on her back to steady her while they sidestepped back along the cut to a more favorable location to climb back up onto the main path. When they were no longer over the rocky outcropping, Spock pondered the extent of the injuries that would be likely as a result of falling from ten meters into water, taking into account water's surface tension, the likely angle of entry, and Earth's gravity.

"Can you hoist Saxena up first?" Schassler called.

He and Rylax were leaning over the edge with their arms outstretched. Schassler and Rylax grabbed her hands and pulled, but they had poor balance, and Saxena began to struggle.

He looked at Schmidt and saw his face was pale and his jaw was set. If Spock had been paying closer attention, it might not have happened at all. He didn't even see the large rock that Saxena's foot had dislodged until it had already met the side of his temple. Then reality faded to black.

* * *

He was unsure if the hospital room was dimly lit or if he was having problems with his vision. His head hurt, and his memory of how he'd come to be there was nonexistent.

"You're _awake_ ," a female voice declared.

The lights in the room were illuminated more fully and Spock's head began to pound as he squinted against the light.

"Commander Pike will be relieved. Awful lot of paperwork when trainees _die_."

Spock rolled his head on the pillow to see the same nurse who'd given him the thirty-two vaccinations on his first day of inprocessing. His neck was sore, and he became aware that his face was also. He gently palpated the left side of his forehead and winced, and traced his fingers along his eye socket and the side of his head.

"What happened?" he asked his voice sore and hoarse.

"You got smacked in the head with a rock and almost drowned. You fractured your skull but you're lucky they pulled you out just in time. Vulcan lungs are delicate things, you know. It's not easy pumping water out of them."

He searched his mind for some memory of being hit with a rock and found none. "When did this occur?"

"About five hours ago," she said, scanning through her PADD.

There was a knock at the door and the doctor who had examined him on his first day entered and began a thorough exam.

"Thanks goodness for thicker Vulcan bone density, huh?" the doctor mused as he checked Spock's pupils.

"Are you referring to the fracture I sustained to my skull?"

"Yeah, but also your _neck_ ," the doctor said. "The way your friends describe what happened, if it had been _them_ , would have snapped their necks and completely crushed their little noggins."

His exam continued for another hour, and despite being unable to recall the incident that had landed him in the hospital, the doctor pronounced him in good health.

"Your cadre really wants you out of here tonight," the doctor frowned, signing off on his chart. "I like having my beds open, but I prefer to be careful with head injuries. I'm going to keep you for another two hours just in case and run another scan, but you'll be out of here by 1900 hours if you don't have any problems. I'm putting you on light duty for the next three days and I want to see you back here in the morning. If you have any vomiting, vision loss, dizziness, loss of balance, confusion, or severe headaches, you come back right away. Understand?"

Spock acknowledged the doctor's orders, and as he left to update the chart, Commander Pike caught the door and entered. "Trainee Spock, can I have a minute?"

"As you are my superior officer, it would seem inadvisable to refuse a conference with you," he said. "I am also unable to leave the confines of this bed, so I have more than just _one_ minute to speak with you, if that is what you wish."

Pike gave him a sharp look, shook his head in disbelief, and chuckled lightly. He pulled a visitor's chair from the wall closer to Spock's bed and took a seat. His hands were clasped together and Spock wondered at the informality he was exhibiting.

"I'm glad you're ok," Pike began. "Besides, you know, we've been trying to recruit more Vulcans into Starfleet, and that might be difficult to do if we killed off the first one to join in ten years in less than a week."

"Thank you for your concern, Commander."

"Your team told me what happened," he added, sitting back in his chair to face Spock. "It's going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork. I'd like to get your version of it, but the doc tells me you don't remember much."

"That is correct."

"What's the last thing you _do_ remember?" Pike asked.

"We were traversing a rock face," Spock responded, thinking hard to himself. "That is all I am able to recall."

"Ok," Pike nodded. "Well, Trainee Saxena slipped and you caught her. When the others pulled her up, she accidentally kicked a rock into your face and you fell into the lake."

Spock greatly disliked being unable to account for a portion of his life.

"You know, it was Trainee Schmidt who jumped in after you," Pike added. "The others said he didn't hesitate. Nearly drowned himself trying to keep your head above water. He got released from medical a few hours ag and he's been asking about you."

"So we did not finish the mission," Spock replied. "Will we be required to repeat the training?"

" _That's_ the first thing you think to ask?" Pike asked incredulously.

"Is it not relevant?"

"Uh, well, your cadre have recommended you continue your training," Pike said, smirking to himself. "I agree with their assessment. I think Schmidt made a rash decision in choosing the route he did."

"Commander, what will happen to Trainee Schmidt?"

"What about him?" Pike replied, a quizzical expression spreading over his face.

"Will he continue his training as well?"

"I won't discuss that with you," Pike said. "That's between me, Schmidt, and your cadre."

"If I may say, sir, I believe Schmidt performed well as the team's leader."

" _Really_?" Pike asked, raising his eyebrows.

"His decision to take the shorter route wasn't hastily made. I do not believe he intended to be careless or needlessly endanger anyone."

"Hmmm," Pike mused. " _Noted_. One thing I _can_ say; that marker was placed where it was for a reason."

"You suggest it was placed in a dangerous location to assess a leader's tendency to make reckless decisions," Spock commented, thinking over the logic.

"And maybe also to see if someone leads well enough to convince others to follow," Pike said, rising to his feet. "Anyway, I'm overdue for a staff meeting. I hear they're letting you out tonight, which is good. Wouldn't want you to miss the fun."

" _Fun_ , sir?" Spock queried.

"Let's try not to cross paths again for the rest of your training here, shall we?" Pike said with a smile before leaving the room.

Just over two hours later, Spock was released from medical and told to return to the barracks. Other than a dull headache, he felt healthy. The building was unusually quiet for 1930, and when he arrived at his barracks, he found the room empty and his rucksack sitting on his bunk. He went back to the hallway and cautiously approached the cadre office. He could hear Morrison and Quinones talking behind the cracked door, and knocked gently.

" _What_?" Morrison barked.

"Sir, I have just been released and was sent back to the barracks," he said, standing at attention.

"Well, I can see _that_ , Morrison growled. "What do you _want_?"

"Instructions, sir," Spock replied. "I am unable to locate the squad."

"Maybe you should look outside," Quinones shrugged.

Spock's eyes darted toward the window, where he saw several small fires in the tree line. He was uncertain what they were suggesting he should do, but the obvious inference was that the whole of the training campus was on some mission or assignment.

"It's good to see you're ok," Morrison said, with a measure of tenderness that seemed nearly genuine.

"Thank you, s-"

" _Now get out of my office_!" he roared.

"Aye, sir," said Spock, turning quickly on his heel.

"And don't you _dare_ come back drunk," Morrison called after him. "Nothing makes me happier than curing a hangover at 0400 with my trumpet!"

Spock walked through the woods just outside of the training campus and quickly encountered people from Delta Squad, who pointed him in the direction of his own group. They were huddled around a small fire, the red glow illuminating their faces and exaggerating their features.

" _Hey_!" Scrivner yelled, holding up a plastic cup too quickly, causing him to spill some of the contents. "Spock's back!"

"Hey!" the others echoed in response, turning to greet him.

He noted two exceptions, Saxena and Schmidt, who both sat alone at the edge of the group.

"Didn't know you'd be back on your feet so soon," Schassler said. "Hit like that, I wasn't sure you'd ever be on your feet _again_."

"You look _awful_ ," Spooner laughed.

She pulled him into a tight hug, which mildly unnerved him. He extricated himself from her grip and asked what they were doing.

"It's tradition, after Hell Week is over," Scrivner explained. "The cadre looks the other way and we sneak into the woods, take in some refreshments, and let out some frustration."

"I fail to see how consuming alcohol near an open flame is conducive to that purpose," Spock argued.

"Well then, my boy, you've failed to understand the point of _life_ ," the older man laughed. "Someone get him a drink!"

"I do not wish to partake-"

"Oh come on!" Spencer said, pulling a plastic cup from a cellophane wrapper. "Just one. Yes, this _is_ peer pressure. But if anyone deserves a drink, it's definitely _you_."

"There's not a whole lot of options, but what'll you have?" Rusza asked.

"Yeah, this is the last time Spencer is _ever_ put in charge of alcohol," Schassler agreed. "She brought back cheap tequila, some light lager that tastes like feet, and chocolate liqueur."

"Yeah, because she thinks we're either bums or eighty-year old women," Rusza laughed.

" _Shut up_ ," Spencer sneered, raising the plastic cup to her mouth to hide her smile.

"After the week we've had, it tastes just _fine_ ," Spooner sighed before belching and laughing uncontrollably.

"The effects of alcohol on my physiology are quite different than on yours," Spock tried to explain.

"Vulcans can't get drunk?" Rutherford asked in disbelief. " _Boo_."

"If my medical training serves me correctly, I seem to remember chocolate can affect a Vulcan's mental state," Schassler said with a slight smile.

"Chocolate liqueur it is," Rusza said, pouring some into a cup. "Maybe you didn't screw up so bad after all, Spencer."

Spock sensed it would be rude to refuse their offer, but he had never been intoxicated before. It seemed unsafe to experience an altered state of consciousness near a fire in the dark with others who were also drunk. He took the cup hesitantly and surveyed his fellow squad members.

"To Spock, the asshole who made us run 'til we puked," Rusza said, raising his cup and drinking.

The others laughed and joined in the toast. "Why did you refer to me as an 'asshole?' Is this not an insult you have reserved for Instructor Morrison?"

"It's a drunken term of endearment; get over it," Rusza retorted. " _You asshole_."

Spock took a sip of the dark liquid in his cup and sputtered. It was both sweet and acrid and burned as it flowed down his throat. The others resumed talking amongst themselves and Spencer and Spooner made a space on the ground between them and motioned for him to join.

He looked to Saxena; she was sitting with her knees curled up to her chest about a meter behind them, and approached her instead.

"May I join you?" he asked.

Her eyes grew wide and she took a long gulp of the yellowish liquid in her cup and shrugged.

"I wish to-"

"I am _so_ sorry for what happened," she interrupted. " _For everything_."

"It was unintentional, and we both survived."

She looked to the dark green bruises on the left side of his face, and he saw the first tears fall down her cheeks. "I didn't mean- I'm still so sorry," she mumbled, taking another drink.

"It is my hope that we can remain friends," he said, wishing to avoid acknowledging that which was already evident.

"You mean like a do-over?" she asked.

"Could you provide a definition of the term, 'do-over'?"

"We act like none of this ever happened and start off fresh," she explained.

"It would be illogical to refuse to recognize past events."

"I'm really sorry, Spock," she said.

"There is nothing for which to apologize. If you will excuse me, there is someone else I wish to speak with."

She nodded and as he left, Spencer and Spooner shuffled back to where Saxena was sitting. Schmidt was sitting with Schassler several meters away and the two were solemnly shaking hands.

" _Spock_ ," Schmidt said stiffly.

"I wish to thank you for saving my life," Spock said, believing a show of appreciation might mitigate Schmidt's usual irritation. "I also wish to apologize for breaking your arm."

Schmidt frowned and looked down at his knees. "Yeah, I guess giving you a black eye wasn't one of my prouder moments. _I'm sorry_."

"I accept your apology," Spock responded.

"Oh, will you just _sit down_ ," Schassler moaned. "You've both kissed and made up. Let's just start over."

Spock was uncertain if the alcohol was affecting Schassler's usually more reserved mood and wondered at his terminology of "kissing and making up," but he complied with the small man's request.

The three of them sat quietly for nearly ten minutes while Spock continued to sip on the beverage that Rusza had poured. His extremities felt warm and he found he felt content to sit and observe the fire.

"You know, you people really aren't so bad, and I'm sorry I've been such a dick," Schmidt said at long last.

"Hey, it's fine," Schassler said. "Past is the past, right?"

"You know, I've never really had a lot of friends," Schmidt confessed.

" _That's_ easy to believe," Schassler grinned.

Schmidt rolled his eyes and scowled at Schassler, and they both began laughing. Spock couldn't understand the source of their mirth, but he understood Schmidt's sentiment about friends well enough.

"Nor have I," he admitted.

He was surprised by his own confession and he took another sip of the chocolate liqueur. Perhaps the drink was affecting it judgment more than he realized.

" _That's_ easy to believe too," Schmidt agreed.

Spock felt a strange compulsion to laugh. He set his drink down on the ground by his feet, wishing to avoid a gross breech of etiquette by allowing himself to openly lose emotional control. Schmidt and Schassler chuckled between themselves and Spock tried to recenter his focus.

"You know, I joined Starfleet because I had nowhere else to go," Schmidt explained. "My dad finally had enough of me and I knew if I stayed in that town, I'd end up in prison. Maybe worse."

"That's rough," Schassler said.

"I'm not educated like you guys," he said, waving his hand between Schassler and Spock. "I'm good with my hands and I'm smart. Obviously smart enough to be accepted as a Starfleet officer. But you guys intimidate the hell out of me."

" _Ugh_ , slow down on the booze before you start crying," Schassler teased. "Look, you're a _giant_. You intimidate the hell out of me too. Guys like you used to stuff me in lockers back in grade school."

"My own father and I share a less than optimal relationship," Spock said suddenly, ignoring their shift in conversation.

Schassler and Schmidt looked at him in surprise.

" _Spock's talking about his personal life_? Yeah, we gotta quit drinking before we all turn into blubbering babies," Schassler said, setting his cup down.

"You know they say blood is thicker than water," Schmidt said.

" _Huh_? Schassler murmured.

"We were talking about _family_ , you dumbass," Schmidt explained. "Family is supposed to be the most important thing. So what happens when you don't _have_ one that you like?"

"Interesting choice of quote, because you just gave the abridged version that completely inverts the meaning of the original," Schassler mused, finishing off the beer in his cup and pouring more.

"What are you talking about? What else _could_ it mean?" Schmidt argued.

"The original phrase was 'the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.' It dates back to old style warfare and refers to the idea that the blood you shed in battle for your comrades matters more than your heritage. You can't choose your family, but you _can_ choose your friends."

"I'll drink to that," Schmidt said after a brief pause.

He raised his cup, and Spock picked up his own drink, and he, Schassler, and Schmidt touched their cups together and finished the alcohol that remained in them.

They spent the next several hours talking, long after the fire had been extinguished and the others had returned to the barracks. He would later have difficulty recalling the subject of their conversation.

It was morning when someone started kicking the bottom of his boot. That indignity was soon followed by the scream of a loud brass instrument. His head was in agony, and he clutched his hands over his ears to stifle the sound.

"You are going to be on extra duty until you _die_ ," Morrison shouted.

Spock squinted his eyes open to see both Morrison and Quinones standing over him. He was lying on the ground and his clothes were soaked with dew.

"You're due at medical in thirty minutes for your check up," Quinones said with a wry smile.

Spock sat up and felt a surge of nausea. He noticed Schmidt was squatting and holding his head, and Schassler was still lying flat on his back, blinking up at the morning sun.

"Sir, we just lost track of time," Schmidt mumbled. "That's all."

"Nice try, _trainee_ , but you have vomit on your shirt," Quinones laughed. " _Let's go_."

As they marched back to the barracks, Spock looked at both Schassler and Schmidt. They looked disheveled and terrible, but Schassler gave him a weak grin and a shrug. Up ahead, he saw several unfamiliar instructors rounding up other wayward students, and wondered how severe their punishment would be.

Commander Pike was strolling casually along the sidewalk in front of the barracks building, watching the procession of misery emerge from the trees. At the sight of Spock, Schmidt, and Schassler, he noticeably attempted to suppress a grin.

"Five more weeks to go," Schmidt grumbled.

"I have a feeling it might not be so bad," Schassler argued.

They entered the building and as the door slammed behind them, Spock heard an explosion of laughter erupt from Commander Pike outside.

Spock looked to Schmidt and Schassler.

"I would tend to agree," he said.

 _It might not be so bad after all._


	9. Dedication

**Stardate 2258.96**

Spock patrolled the long lawn on the south end of the Starfleet Academy training complex. The sun was setting and casting long shadows over the plush grass. The ten enormous granite monuments loomed like pillars of grief. The largest was black and one hundred meters long, and bore only a simple inscription etched in the center in Vuhlkansu that read, " _In loss, may we never abandon our pursuit of long life, prosperity, and peace_."

Nine smaller cenotaphs encircled it, representing the lives lost on the eight ships that answered Vulcan's distress call, and the lives lost on Earth in Nero's final assault. The memorial had been dedicated earlier that day, and he had attended the ceremony several hours before. There were the requisite speeches and moments of silence, but Spock required his own private pilgrimage to this place. There were dozens of others paying similar personal respects, and he deferentially afforded them their space.

Nearly everyone he had ever cared for was represented on these stones. His entire family, excepting his father and several distant relations of his mother were venerated on the large, central, black slab honoring Vulcan.

 _Billions of lives. Far too many to name._

The loss of his home world was one he still had difficulty bearing. It had been so great that he often failed to properly consider what else had been lost. _The others_. _They_ were why he had come. He found the first familiar name on the memorial of the _Walcott_.

 _Lieutenant Angelica Spooner, Exobiologist._

They had become close friends over the years, though their careers had mostly kept them apart. Spock had always harbored a quiet, unrequited affection for the beautiful, opinionated scientist. He would always consider Nyota his first love, but Angelica Spooner had been the first to teach him about the intricacies of the human heart.

He turned the corner and a young woman with a shock of white blonde hair caught his eye. Not Susan Spencer, but her _daughter_ , Sarah. She was no longer a child, but a girl on the cusp of womanhood. She was holding a piece of paper against the smooth rock and scraping colored wax across it to reveal the words, _Lieutenant_ _Susan Spencer, Chief Adjutant_.

Her hands were shaking and there were visible tears streaming down her cheeks. He did not wish to disturb her in her grief, and began to move around to the back of the stone when she turned her head.

"Are- are you- I'm sorry, are you _Spock_?" she asked.

"I am," he said, pausing to acknowledge her. "I did not wish to intrude."

" _No_ ," she breathed, choking on her sorrow and sniffing. "Mom talked about you a lot. I can't believe I'm finally meeting you. I'm Sarah."

"Yes, I know," he replied. "She spoke often of you as well."

She thought to herself for a moment, and then awkwardly formed her hand into the Vulcan salute, and looked at him expectantly. He recalled teaching her mother the same gesture years ago, when she had asked why it was that Vulcans never shook hands.

"You know she only had two more weeks left in Starfleet?" Sarah asked.

He _had_ known that. Spencer had been a good officer and was dedicated to her work, but he had always known she desired to make a more proper home for herself and her daughter. Service as a Starfleet officer required a minimum commitment of eight years, a term that she had been quite close to completing before her death aboard the _Antares_.

"Anyway, call me crazy, but I decided to follow in her footsteps. I started the process to join Starfleet three weeks ago when I turned seventeen. I'm supposed to finish the paperwork tomorrow. I guess that means I should be calling you, sir," she said, chuckling through her tears.

"You are not yet a member of Starfleet," he argued. "So for now, I am simply Spock."

"Well, I have to go: my grandma is waiting on me. She wanted to come, but she said she wasn't ready. It was really nice finally meeting you in person though," she said hastily, before adding, "Live long and prosper, Spock."

Her eyes darted to the central Vulcan memorial and she grimaced.

"I am _so_ sorry for your loss," she added. "Your _losses_. I only lost my mom, you lost, _well_ , yeah."

"I lost my mother as well," he explained. "Loss is loss. It is illogical to attempt to quantify grief."

"Mom always said you always knew just the right thing to say," she replied, a weak smile stretching across her lips. "Still, you know, I'm sorry for what happened to your home."

He nodded to her, and they exchanged the familiar Vulcan hand gesture, and she soon disappeared behind the adjacent granite marker. Spock approached the _Antares_ memorial, noting the second name from the top.

 _Commander Rylax, First Officer._

The cheerful Denobulan man had often challenged his solemn Vulcan logic as being too severe, but had been one of the few who also had never suggested that Spock abandon or temporarily suspend his principles when they were inconvenient.

He walked further, coming to the stone honoring the sixty-eight crewmembers that had been killed aboard the _Enterprise_. Engineering and medical had taken heavy losses in their initial evasion from the _Narada_ at the edge of Vulcan space, and that was how Lieutenant Michael Schassler, the _Enterprise_ 's head nurse, had earned his place among the dead.

Schassler had expanded his view of philosophy and given him a renewed appreciation for the Vulcan principle of Kol-Ut-Shan, or Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Their friendship had a strong foundation in logic and learning, and he greatly missed their discussions in the wake of Schassler's death. Of all the familiar names on the _Enterprise_ 's monument, Schassler's weighed the heaviest.

He continued his journey around the granite tribute, coming at last to the memorial for the _Farragut_. At the very top was the name of his longtime mentor, Captain Fernando Quinones. At the time of his death, he'd been the senior instructor in Interspecies Communication and Ethics at Starfleet Academy, and had only assumed command of the _Farragut_ out of necessity. Most of the fleet had been engaged in the Laurentian system when Vulcan was attacked and there had been few starship captains readily available to take command.

Another name halfway down the shiny, smooth face of the rock caught his eye. _Lieutenant Andrew Schmidt, Assistant Chief Engineer_.

The angry, lonely, intelligent, overconfident, frustrated man had always remained an enigma to Spock, but Schmidt had eventually found a place among the truest of his friends. Yet for all of his emotional failings, Schmidt had instilled in him an understanding that there were no people who were truly beyond redemption. He owed his life to Schmidt and it was a debt he would never be able to repay.

There were many other names of friends and acquaintances written on these stones that he'd met in his nearly nine years of service in Starfleet, and while he privately grieved for each, the losses from his fellow former members of Sigma Squad were unique. It had been his mother that had endowed him with an element of humanity, but it had been Sigma Squad who had first taught him what it meant to _be_ human.

"Commander Spock," called a familiar voice.

He turned his head to see the newly promoted Admiral Christopher Pike, still bound to his chair.

"Sir," he said, moving to the position of attention.

"Oh stop it," the older man smirked. "Looks like we had the same idea in coming here. It's been months, but seeing the names this way… it's sad when you realize you know more dead people than living ones."

"We are fortunate to be among the living," Spock agreed.

"Yeah, but being alive isn't the same thing as _living_ , is it?"

"Are you referring to your previous recommendation that I leave Starfleet Academy for service in space?" Spock asked.

"We served well together for years, Spock, but you have to get out there," Pike replied, glancing up to the sky. "I won't _order_ you, but there are several open assignments on starships. The _Antares-A_ is nearly rebuilt, and-"

"I shall take it under advisement," he said, uncharacteristically interrupting his superior officer.

Spock had been deeply conflicted about his future in the months following Vulcan's destruction. Ambassador Spock had urged him to befriend James Kirk, yet he still felt a duty to leave Starfleet and settle on the newly established colony of New Vulcan.

"Well, for what it's worth, I hear the new captain of the _Enterprise_ is looking for a first officer," Pike mused. "Might be worth looking into."

"I do not believe that Captain Kirk and myself would forge an ideal partnership," Spock argued.

"I'm pretty sure you once felt the same way about someone called Andrew Schmidt," Pike frowned, scanning the memorial stone and resting his eyes on Schmidt's name.

"You imply that our differences would lend strength to a command team," Spock stated.

"You're Vulcan. You're _smart_. Deduce what you want from it. But I think you're wasting your talents here at Starfleet Academy."

"It is growing late and I should return to my quarters, sir," Spock said, glancing to the sun falling behind the horizon.

"Right," Pike agreed. "Oh, by the way, the _Enterprise_ leaves tomorrow for a planetary survey mission to a little rock called Nibiru. Just thought you might want to know."

Spock began the long walk back to his billet, reflecting deeply on Pike's advice, as well as Ambassador Spock's. The diplomat's words echoed clearly in his mind.

 _"I could not deprive you of the revelation of all that you could accomplish together, of a friendship that will define you both in ways you cannot yet realize."_

" _Spock_?"

Just ahead of him, he saw Hadrian Scrivner. The past eight years had turned his fading red hair to full gray now, but time had not diminished the stern look of sadness he'd always carried. Spock had not seen him since they'd graduated the Academy.

"Lieutenant Scrivner," he replied.

"Finally made it back to Earth yesterday after two years of geological surveys in the Bolaran sector. I was just going to pay my respects," Scrivner explained somberly, looking behind Spock into the distance. "Care to join me?"

"I have just come from there," said Spock.

"Oh, yeah, sure," Scrivner replied. "It's been a long time."

"Yes," Spock agreed.

"Still not a man for many words," Scrivner sighed. "It is good to see you, Spock. I wish it were under happier circumstances."

"As do I."

"I'm so sorry for what happened to Vulcan," he confessed. "I can't even begin to imagine what that's like."

"Thank you," Spock replied, knowing that humans had a tendency to apologize for that which they were not responsible as a symbol of empathy.

"You know, it just kills me, thinking about how many people we lost," Scrivner said.

"We should be grateful to be among the living," Spock argued.

"That's what people told me when my family died," Scrivner retorted. "Or one version of it, anyway. Life goes on, life is beautiful, live to honor their memory, all that stuff. Like it was just that _easy_. Sometimes I wonder what the point of even living is anymore."

"Death is a part of life," Spock replied. "Perhaps one of the _most_ simple aspects of living; it takes no effort to do. But grieving is complex. Perhaps it is not enough to live for the dead, but to consider living for the living."

"You and Schassler, boy I tell you," Scrivner smiled. "Big brains and old souls, you two."

Spock could see tears welling at the corners of Scrivner's eyes and was uncertain how to proceed.

"I was returning to my quarters for private reflection," he explained.

"Oh, yeah, I didn't mean to keep you," Scrivner sniffed. "God, it was so _good_ to see you, Spock. We should keep in touch."

"Certainly," Spock agreed.

They both had so few friends left. They nodded goodbye to one another, and Spock continued his journey home when Scrivner called out to him.

"Hey, Commander Spock?"

He looked over his shoulder to Scrivner, who stood with his shoulders slightly hunched.

"I know you're still young, but life is so _short_. It gets shorter every day."

"It does indeed," Spock agreed. "May you live long and prosper, Hadrian Scrivner."

"You too, Spock."

He was uncertain what he should infer from Scrivner's obvious statement about the relative brevity of life, but he considered his own advice to the man. _Live for the living._

Ambassador Spock's words trailed through his thoughts again. " _…all that you could accomplish together, of a friendship that will define you both in ways you cannot yet realize_."

Vulcans were a private people, but they were not a _solitary_ people. His life had held more meaning when it had been entwined in the bonds of friendship. He thought of Schassler, who had once told him that it is the people we _choose_ who matter most. He thought of Kirk, who had risked _so_ much for his friends, which forced him to consider Ambassador Spock's advice for a third time.

Spock reasoned that he did not have to _serve_ with James Kirk to be his friend. Kirk was young and brash, and was certainly very different than the Kirk Ambassador Spock had known. Still, Nyota had received her commission and had taken an assignment on the _Enterprise_.

He had not spoken with her in several days. They had both supposed their relationship would be brief: most liaisons in Starfleet were, thanks to the transience that Federation service demanded. It was illogical to regret past decisions, yet in his quieter moments, he had occasionally wondered what might have been if he had taken the position of Science Officer aboard the _Walcott_ with Angelica Spooner. Yes, it was _very_ illogical to speculate on that matter. Had he been aboard the _Walcott_ , his name would be written alongside hers.

He arrived in his quarters and sat down on the plain, standard issue sofa in the tiny central living area. It had been days since his last serious meditation, and the day's events offered much to reflect upon. He became aware of the passage of time only when the morning sun began to stream through the Eastern window.

The clock on the wall read 0658. He stood, removed his dress uniform, hung it neatly in the closet, and dressed in standard duty uniform. As he departed his quarters, he observed himself in the long mirror stationed by the door. Nearly nine years in Starfleet: time had passed quickly.

An hour later, he found himself in the turbolift, pondering the probability of his success. James Kirk was an unpredictable man. Soon enough, the door slid open and he stepped out onto the familiar bridge.

He had not anticipated that the captain would so freely accept him, but humans were so often in the habit of doing the unexpected. Schmidt had been the first to teach him that, and had reminded him of it often.

Nyota grinned broadly as he moved past her to take up position at the science station. Her smile was lovely and genuine, as Spooner's had always been.

His hands settled on the screen of the computer terminal and he began to analyze the ship's mission. A fresh start. Vulcan was gone. Most of his friends were dead.

He recalled Schassler had said that home was wherever one chose to make it, and friends were the people who willingly travelled the same journey through life. He felt the pull of the engine's warp drive engage and examined the crew of the bridge.

 _Yes, a home could be made anywhere, so long as it was made in the company of friends._


End file.
